Public administration research from a practitioner perspective

We seek to contribute to this ongoing debate by comparing the knowledge needs identified by members of the International City/County Management Association ICMA with 15 years of research

Gregory Streib

Georgia State University

Bert J Slotkin

Georgia State University

Mark Rivera

Georgia State University

Public Administration Research from a

Practitioner Perspective

Recent research has questioned both the rigor and theoretical development of public

administra-tion research The proposed soluadministra-tions have generally endorsed a more academically oriented

research agenda Authors have discussed practitioner needs, but the focus has been on the

appro-priateness of different research methods rather than the types of knowledge needed We seek to

contribute to this ongoing debate by comparing the knowledge needs identified by members of the

International City/County Management Association (ICMA) with 15 years of research in Public

Administration Review We found much published research matching the needs of ICMA

mem-bers, but it focused on a relatively narrow range of topics We recommend incorporating a

con-cern for relevance into efforts to improve public administration research This will help to ensure

that we build a knowledge base that makes a substantial contribution to practice

Gregory Streib is a professor of public administration in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University His research focuses on local government management He is currently working on a study

examin-ing the usefulness of government Web sites Email: gstreib@gsu.edu Bert J Slotkin is a graduate research assistant in the Andrew Young School

of Policy Studies at Georgia State University He has worked extensively on the development of two ICMA assessment instruments He is currently in his third year of law school while also completing work on his master of public

administration degree Email: bjslotkin@rhs-law.com.

Mark Rivera is a research associate at the Applied Research Center in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University He man-ages a multiyear assessment instrument project sponsored by the ICMA in addition to conducting program evaluations and survey research for many state and privately funded programs He holds a doctorate and master’s

degree in experimental psychology from DePaul University in Chicago Email: mdrivera@gsu.edu.

In recent years, a number of authors have studied the

accumulated works of public administration scholars This

series began with research on public management

con-ducted by Garson and Overman (1983) Since this time,

an impressive body of literature has developed that

exam-ines and debates the quality and nature of research in the

field The work of doctoral students has received a great

deal of attention, for example Dissertation abstracts have

been examined (Cleary 1992; McCurdy and Cleary 1984;

White 1986b), as well as the productivity of doctoral

pro-gram graduates (Brewer et al 1999) Researchers have also

studied the research methodologies used in Public

Admin-istration Review (Perry and Kraemer 1986; Stallings and

Ferris 1988) and other public administration journals

(Houston and Delevan 1990) The topics addressed in PAR

also received scrutiny (Bingham and Bowen 1994; Watson

and Montjoy 1991)

These empirical studies renewed interest in an old

de-bate about research standards in the field (Adams 1992) A

criticism that has emerged from recent studies is that

pub-lic administration research lacks theory building and

propo-sition testing, cumulative research, and rigorous research

methods While such critiques have offered some impor-tant insights, they have tended to press a decidedly aca-demic research agenda, raising questions about the future role of practice in the field of public administration In-deed, some recent critics have called directly for a break with practice Stallings (1986), for example, advises that doctoral research needs to rise above the “individual and particular problems of day-to-day practical administration” (239) Stallings and Ferris (1988) maintain that public

ad-ministration has been clinging to a practitioner focus to

justify its existence in higher education, and Houston and

Delevan (1990) argue that this behavior has hindered the

field’s intellectual development These comments raise a

serious concern, given that practice is, in many ways, the

very soul of the field Researchers have been drawn to

pub-lic administration since the early 1900s out of a desire to

address the problems of government and society

Of course, this ongoing debate has not been totally one

sided Authors such as White (1986a) and Box (1992)

de-fend practitioner-oriented research, and they have helped

clarify the types of knowledge that practicing

administra-tors need These authors define approaches to public

ad-ministration research that contribute to a dynamic,

endur-ing knowledge base that is relevant to practitioners One

thing their arguments lack, however, is a discussion of the

types of topics that need to be covered We now have a

better idea of what types of research can contribute, but

we know very little about the specific knowledge needs of

practicing managers

In this article, we examine research in public

adminis-tration from the perspective of an important group of

prac-titioners Many researchers have considered the field from

an academic perspective, and we want to look at another

side of the story McCurdy and Cleary (1984) make some

interesting points in defending their critique of public

ad-ministration dissertations They contrast research in

pub-lic administration with medicine, and note that medical

practitioners “await new findings in the New England

Jour-nal of Medicine (or can be sued for malpractice if they do

not keep up)” (554) Achieving this level of relevance

re-quires both a rich body of skillfully conducted academic

research and strong linkages between academics and

prac-titioners Understanding the current state of this linkage is

the first step toward achieving this goal

Practices for Effective Local Government

Management

The “Practices for Effective Local Government

Man-agement,” developed by members of the International City/

County Management Association (ICMA), form the

foun-dation of this research effort These practices represent the

best thinking of the city management profession about the

knowledge and skills required of an effective local

gov-ernment manager ICMA has worked to support

profes-sional local government management since 1914 With

more than 8,000 administrators and assistants among its

membership, ICMA is the nation’s largest local public

management organization

In 1991, ICMA began working with its membership to

identify the knowledge areas most critical to effective local

government management The process involved workshops,

forums at state meetings, two national surveys, and mul-tiple meetings of a special task force This “Dialogue on the Profession” led to the identification of 29 practices that were considered essential to effective local public management Members expressed their approval with the final product through survey responses and a vote held during a business meeting at an annual conference These 29 practices are or-ganized into eight groups (table 1) We do not want to sug-gest that ICMA’s practices are the last word on the knowl-edge and skills needed to manage local government, but they

do constitute a unique resource They give us a way to com-pare public administration research to an authoritative source—the collected wisdom of experienced managers The full text of the eight practices is available in the appendix

We became acquainted with the practices while work-ing on a collaborative project with ICMA We had the op-portunity to thoroughly discuss the development of the practices with ICMA staff, consultants, and managers in-volved in their development These discussions helped us

to better understand what each practice seeks to address

Evaluating Public Administration Research

Articles in Public Administration Review provided the

data for our research We sought to compare and contrast research published in this journal with the practices for effective local government management developed by ICMA Our goal was to examine the linkage between the

research published in PAR and the essential knowledge

areas identified by ICMA

Table 1 ICMA Practices for Effective Local Government Management

Staff effectiveness

Coaching/mentoring, team leadership, empowerment, delegating

Policy facilitation

Facilitative leadership, facilitating council effectiveness, mediation/ negotiation

Service-delivery management

Functional/operational expertise, operational planning, citizen service, quality assurance

Strategic leadership

Initiative and risk taking, vision, creativity and innovation, technological literacy

Democratic responsiveness

Democratic advocacy, diversity, citizen participation

Organizational planning and management

Budgeting, financial analysis, human resources management, strategic planning

Communication

Advocacy, presentation skills, media relations interpersonal communica-tion

Integrity

Personal integrity, professional integrity, organizational integrity

The focus on PAR raises some questions, as it is not the

only academic journal in the field publishing articles about

local government Not every article published in PAR is

relevant to local government managers, but it is the

aca-demic journal most likely to meet their needs PAR’s

edi-torial philosophy indicates that it seeks to balance the

aca-demic and the practical and to “improve the effectiveness

of administration as a key part of the governance process”

(PAR 2000a) It is, among other things “a journal for

prac-titioners” (PAR 2000b) Public Administration Review is

the principal publication of the American Society for

Pub-lic Administration (ASPA), which committed itself in 1998

to “improve the effectiveness of democratic governance

by positively influencing public policy and management

and the ethical performance of public services” (ASPA

2000) ICMA seeks “the preservation of the values and

integrity of representative local government and local

de-mocracy and a dedication to the promotion of efficient and

effective management of public services.” (ICMA 2000)

We do not mean to suggest that all of these major public

administration institutions perform the same functions, but

their missions clearly overlap

Of course, our study is not the first to examine the

con-tent of articles published in Public Administration Review.

Most empirical studies of public administration research

have focused principally on PAR, and their authors have

defended the soundness of this approach Houston and

Delevan (1990), for example, argue that PAR is the field’s

premier journal Public administration scholars regard it

as the journal publishing the best articles (Forrester and

Watson 1994) Of course, PAR is also the principal

publi-cation of ASPA As Stallings and Ferris (1988) note, this

alone makes a sound argument for examining articles in

Public Administration Review A final reason to look at

PAR is simply because many other empirical studies have

been done in a similar way We see our study as an

addi-tional contribution to this ongoing debate, and it makes

sense to have a common reference point

In an effort to broaden the impact of our findings, we

also conducted a limited examination of other

peer-re-viewed journals that publish local government research,

to see if their content mirrors our PAR findings ASPA

sections sponsor many of these journals We chose

jour-nals most likely to present research relevant to local

gov-ernment officials This additional analysis was less

struc-tured than our study of PAR, but it does increase the value

of our research

Methodology

Our analysis focused on refereed articles relevant to

lo-cal government management published in PAR during

1984–98 Our database included 266 articles that

contrib-uted to the enhancement of effective local government management, as defined by ICMA Practices for Effective Local Government Management This represented roughly

30 percent of the 901 articles published during our study period The articles we omitted addressed a wide variety

of topics, including federal or state governments or agen-cies, foreign governments, and the state of public adminis-tration as a discipline Our goal was to identify articles that contributed to the development of the local public management knowledge base, as defined by the practices

We collected an extensive amount of data on the articles selected for analysis Most importantly, we counted each meaningful effort to address an ICMA practice, closely following the wording of the ICMA practices To ensure coding accuracy, we used consistent, computer-based cod-ing and recordcod-ing techniques Our efforts produced an ex-tensive codebook that recorded our decision criteria and guided our decisions This codebook began well before

we looked at articles, and it went through nearly 100 trans-formations during the data collection We made these changes as our thoughts about the analysis evolved We reacted to things we learned that could not have been an-ticipated when the codebook was first created Our coding activities went beyond simple pigeonholing and reflected some of the themes and nuances of the actual articles The practices leave some room for interpretation, but we be-lieve our classifications are consistent with both the word-ing and the intent of each individual practice

One of the more difficult challenges we faced in the coding was handling articles addressing multiple practices

We did not attempt to identify the predominant practice, which would have been difficult to do with great preci-sion Instead, we made a record of each time a practice was addressed in a meaningful way Multiple references

to the practices were common For example, an article deal-ing with financial analysis, which falls under the practice

of organizational planning and management, might also address budgeting or strategic planning

Our analysis looks at a 15-year period, which includes

several years of PAR articles published before the devel-opment of the practices in 1991 Thus, we examined PAR

research before, during, and after the development of the ICMA practices Our content analysis compares the ag-gregated thoughts of managers, as expressed in the prac-tices, with those presented by public administration re-searchers in the field’s leading journal

Findings

We studied 901 articles in Public Administration Re-view and found 266 that addressed ICMA practices

Thirty-nine percent (105 articles) were written specifically about cities and counties or the council-manager form of

gov-ernment (see figure 1) An additional 10 percent focused

on both state and local government The largest category

includes articles of general interest to the public

adminis-tration community, such as ethics, general management

tools and techniques, and management innovations These

articles might have mentioned more than one level of

gov-ernment or none A small number of articles did not fit

into the other categories Most of these addressed other

forms of local government, such as special districts and

public authorities

PAR Research and ICMA Practices

As table 1 shows, there are 29 ICMA practices

orga-nized into eight groups A general description is provided

for each group of three or more practices The descriptions

provide a general theme for each group, though there are

some practices that clearly fit into more than one group In

our pool of 266 relevant articles from PAR, we found 879

direct, meaningful references to the 29 practices Each of

the selected articles had at least one reference to an ICMA

practice, and multiple references were common Figure 2

shows the distribution of these references

There was a high variability in the number of

ref-erences to each of the eight practice groups Each bar

in figure 2 shows the percentage of references that

each group received The references to the groups

created several distinct tiers The first tier consists

solely of organizational planning and management

Roughly one-quarter of the 266 relevant PAR articles

made reference to these practices This is not a great

surprise, because it includes the budgeting and

hu-man resources subfields and two popular research

subjects, financial analysis and strategic planning

The second tier in figure 2 comprises strategic

leadership and service-delivery management These

two groupings contain a number of popular topics,

such as innovation and technological literacy

(stra-tegic leadership), and functional/operational

exper-tise, operational planning, and citizen service

(ser-vice-delivery management) Scholars paid less

attention to democratic responsiveness, policy facilitation, staff effectiveness, and integrity, which form a fairly uni-form third tier Communication uni-forms the fourth tier; with only 4 percent of the total references, it received substan-tially less attention than most of the other groups

Table 2 offers a more in-depth analysis of the references

to ICMA practices in the 266 relevant PAR articles that we

reviewed It presents the percentage of the 879 references made to each individual practice Looking at the practices within the organizational planning and management group,

we can see that strategic planning and financial analysis received the most attention However, strategic planning does have a solid lock on the number one position This dimension accounted for 34 percent of all references to organizational planning and management Indeed, the stra-tegic planning practice accounted for almost 10 percent of the 879 references to ICMA practices from 1984 to 1998

In table 2 we also get a closer look at strategic leader-ship and service-delivery management, which both gen-erated substantial interest In the case of strategic leader-ship, the practice of creativity and innovation stands out

It ranks second among the 29 practices, falling just be-hind strategic planning Vision is at the low end of the practices within the strategic leadership group, with only

28 references In the case of service-delivery manage-ment, both operational planning and citizen service re-ceived considerable attention

The three groups discussed above constitute what we have called our first and second tiers Though they received far more attention than the remaining five groups, some individual practices in the lower tiers generated at least moderate levels of interest Both citizen participation and facilitative leadership stand out as popular practices from lower-ranked groups Citizen participation was the most

Figure 1 Forms of Government Addressed in Selected

PAR Articles*

Percentage of articles addressing each category

Multiple or none

City and/or county

State and local

Council government

Other specific forms

Figure 2 References to ICMA Practice Groups in Selected Areas

Percentage of articles addressing each group

Organizational planning and

management Strategic leadership Service-delivery management Democratic responsiveness Policy facilitation Staff effectiveness Integrity Communication

*Of 901 articles reviewed, this chart displays findings for 266 that were relevant to

local government management.

frequently referenced practice from the democratic

respon-siveness group, and facilitative leadership was the most

frequently referenced practice in the policy facilitation

group Both democratic responsiveness and policy

facili-tation fall into our third tier

Staff effectiveness and integrity are also in the third

tier None of the individual practices in the staff

effec-tiveness group ranked very highly against those in the

other groups, though coaching and empowerment

gar-nered some attention The practice of organizational

in-tegrity within the inin-tegrity group approached the number

of references found in some of the higher tiers It

com-pares favorably to the vision practice in the strategic

lead-ership group, for example The other practices in the

in-tegrity group included professional inin-tegrity and personal

integrity, and they received substantially less attention

than organizational integrity

The fourth tier consists only of communication None

of the individual practices in this group accounted for even

2 percent of the total 879 references The practices of

pre-sentation skills and media relations fall within this group,

and they received the fewest references of all 29 practices

They were seldom mentioned in PAR during 1984–98.

We were also interested in examining how interest in the practices changed over time Figure 3 shows these find-ings, with individual practices listed in the same order as table 2 The length of the bars for each practice indicates the number of references received during five different three-year periods The most striking aspect of practices

in the first tier is the high level of attention they received from 1984 to 1986 During this period, a special issue on emergency management was published, which placed a heavy emphasis on local government management Many articles in that special issue made direct references to ICMA practices Strategic planning appeared frequently, for ex-ample These references were consistent with ICMA’s prac-tice of strategic planning, which requires “positioning the organization and the community for events and circum-stances that are anticipated in the future.”

Looking across the 29 practices presented in figure 3, only strategic planning and creativity and innovation re-ceived a high number of references in each of the five time

Table 2 Discussion of the Practices in the Selected Articles

Percentage of Practice groups Frequency Percentage Practices Frequency articles in Percentage

each group overall

Organizational planning and management 235 26.7 Strategic planning 79 33.6 9.0

Human resources management 46 19.6 5.2

Initiative and risk taking 35 20.7 4.0

Functional/operational expertise 29 20.1 3.3

Facilitating council effectiveness 17 22.4 1.9

Interpersonal communication 13 33.3 1.5

periods Both of these practices were addressed frequently

in the boom years of 1984 through 1986, and they were

also popular during later periods Articles in Public

Ad-ministration Review have consistently addressed issues

related to preparing for future situations and exploring new

approaches There are also practices in figure 3 that

de-clined in frequency, such as budgeting and human resource

management These areas did especially poorly from 1996

to 1998

This most recent period, 1996–98, was an era of

initia-tive, risk taking, and citizen service Recent years have also

seen a rising interest in citizen participation, facilitative

leadership, and empowerment It would be a mistake to

make too much out of relatively minor shifts, but the

find-ings in figure 3 offer some reason to believe the interests

of public administration authors may have broadened over the years

Researching Local Government Management

We also studied the data-collection methods used in the

266 articles that were relevant to local government man-agement Overall, our findings were similar to those of previous empirical researchers who have examined research

in PAR As figure 4 shows, for example, surveys were the

most commonly used research method, but case studies came in a close second We also found that more sophisti-cated forms of statistical analysis were rarely used We did see slight increases in the use of more advanced statistical procedures over time, but the changes were too slight to support claims of an upward trend We also found that

re-Figure 3 References to Practices by Year

Number of references to each practice

Strategic planning Financial analysis Budgeting Human resources management

Creativity and innovation

Technological literacy Initiative and risk taking

Vision Operational planning Citizen service Quality assurance Functional/Operational expertise

Citizen participation Democratic advocacy

Diversity Facilitative leadership Mediation/negotiation Facilitating council effectiveness

Coaching/mentoring Empowerment Team leadership Delegating Organizational integrity Professional integrity Personal integrity Advocacy Interpersonal communication

Presentation skills Media relations

search was seldom cumulative and that outside funding

was rare Only 15 percent of the articles relevant to local

government management acknowledged funding, and in

most cases funding appeared to have been provided by the

author’s own institution

We were also interested in examining the institutional

affiliation of authors producing the 266 articles relevant

to ICMA practices To control for coauthorship, we

counted each article once when there were multiple

au-thors from the same institution As table 3 shows, only a

few institutions produced multiple articles relevant to

ICMA practices during the period under study The table

displays those institutions with three or more articles

during our study period

Looking Beyond Public Administration Review

When evaluating the articles in PAR, it is important to

consider the abundance of journals publishing articles rel-evant to local government managers Many of these jour-nals are affiliated with the different interest sections of the American Society for Public Administration For

ex-ample, journals such as Public Budgeting and Finance, Review of Public Personnel Administration, State and Local Government Review, Journal of Public Adminis-tration Research and Theory, and Public Productivity and Management Review would seem likely sources for

re-search relevant to local government managers There are also some excellent refereed research journals that

func-tion independently of ASPA, including the American Re-view of Public Administration, Urban Affairs Quarterly, Public Administration Quarterly, and International Re-view of Public Administration.

Our review of the broader public administration

lit-erature confirmed the argument that publications in PAR

represent a good cross-section of the field Of course, the individual journals varied quite a bit, with some being far more specialized than others, but their combined

im-pact was similar to that found in PAR There were many

articles published between 1984 and 1998 that fit the knowledge areas identified by ICMA, but the overwhelm-ing majority addressed the practices found in our upper

tiers As was the case with PAR, far less attention was

paid to the democratic responsiveness, policy facilitation, staff effectiveness, integrity, and communication groups, which comprised 17 of the 29 practices developed by ICMA membership

There were notable exceptions to the rule, of course Overall, there were many articles published in the field of public administration that are relevant to practice groups

in the lower tiers American Review of Public Administra-tion, for example, featured articles by Felbinger (1989) and

Felts and Schuman (1997) addressing the roles of local government officials These articles made solid

contribu-tions to the policy facilitation group In Public Productiv-ity and Management Review, we found many articles that addressed issues missing from Public Administration Re-view One example is an article by Halachmi (1998)

deal-ing with employees over 50 that contributed to the staff effectiveness group

Nothing we found in journals outside of PAR changed

the overall thrust of our findings Researchers in the field

of public administration show a strong commitment to lo-cal government management, but their range of interests appears substantially narrower than those of local govern-ment managers

Table 3 Leading Producers of PAR Articles Relevant to

Local Government Management

University or system Total articles

University of Southern California 15

Indiana University, University of Georgia 12

Arizona State University, Northern Illinois University,

University of California at Irvine, University of North Texas 7

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,

North Carolina State, New York University 5

Auburn University, Baruch College, City of Auburn,

Cleveland State University, Columbia University,

Iowa State University, Oklahoma State University,

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Akron,

University of Maryland at Baltimore,

University of Central Florida, University of Denver,

University of Missouri at Columbia, University of Oklahoma,

University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington 3

Figure 4 Data-Collection Methods Used in

Selected PAR Articles

Survey (mail or telephone)

Interview (individual or group)

Archival (state records and meta analyses) Case studies

An interesting aspect of the academic field of public

administration is its nearly total lack of boundaries This

level of freedom sets it apart from many academic

disci-plines Public administration is a relatively small field, and

it addresses a broad array of issues Researchers from many

different backgrounds can make valuable contributions

While this sort of “Wild West” environment has its charm,

a number of academics have called for some sort of order

Spurred by negative empirical findings and unflattering

comparisons with other fields, these authors have

identi-fied weaknesses in public administration research and

sug-gested some possible remedies These previous studies were

thoughtful and insightful, and they make a good case for

vigorous efforts to improve the quality of public

adminis-tration research We must make a distinction, however,

between research that meets accepted standards of

aca-demic rigor and research that follows a strictly acaaca-demic

research agenda Melding the best that academia can offer

with the knowledge needs of practicing managers is the

way to build a knowledge base that fulfills the traditional

promise of the public administration field

This study compares research in the field to what local

government managers have identified as Practices for

Ef-fective Local Government Management These practices

are very important to managers, and one of their most

im-portant purposes is guiding the development of the local

government management profession and of individual

managers They define the things that managers need to

know to be effective, and they are the cornerstone of

ICMA’s efforts to maintain the skills and competence of

local government managers ICMA members are required

to participate in 40 hours of additional training each year,

and the practices are intended to guide these efforts ICMA

developed a program known as ICMA University, which

offers courses and training opportunities that fit the

prac-tices They have also developed two assessment instruments

designed to measure knowledge and skills in the areas

ad-dressed by the practices In every use of the practices,

ICMA membership has held to the principle that all

prac-tices are essential, though they acknowledge that the need

to apply each practice may vary according to circumstances

Our findings from studying 15 years of Public

Admin-istration Review indicate that researchers are very

com-mitted to undertaking research that contributes to the local

public management knowledge base However, we also

found a noteworthy disconnection between the published

research and the knowledge needs identified by ICMA

members Some practices receive a great deal of attention,

while others are largely ignored Our examination of other

journals suggests this finding holds true across a wide

va-riety of public administration journals

We saw some broadening of research interests in the years following the completion of the practices, but the changes have been relatively slight It would be

unreason-able to expect topics to cycle through Public Administra-tion Review as if they were on some type of a play list;

however, our examination of 15 years of research does raise some questions The fact that 30 percent of the articles

published in PAR between 1984 and 1998 made a valuable

contribution in areas identified by ICMA membership is good news, but the distribution of the topics covered ap-pears less than ideal

Of course, our findings cannot be accepted at face value Many factors could have affected these findings, apart from the linkage between practitioners and academics For ex-ample, some ICMA practices are simply broader, allow-ing them to attract more references The wordallow-ing of the practices is certainly informal, and some dimensions cover more linguistic and conceptual territory than others do In addition, it is no surprise that references have accumulated for ICMA dimensions that overlap established public ad-ministration subfields, such as budgeting or human resource management It should also be recognized that some areas addressed by the practices are better addressed in other fields, or are not worthy of academic inquiry While some

of these additional factors are worthy of careful consider-ation, they do not appear to fully explain our findings Our research compared the professional needs of the field’s premier group of generalist managers with publica-tions in the premier generalist journal, and we found a somewhat awkward match Local government managers

should be able to pick up several issues of Public Adminis-tration Review and find much that is thought provoking,

informative, and useful The journal needs to speak to the managers in a familiar language and discuss a wide vari-ety of topics relevant to their professional needs Our

find-ings show some apparent gaps, both in PAR and across the

major journals in the field We also confirmed the findings

of other researchers who have studied the rigor of public administration research These weaknesses appear to limit the value of the knowledge base that public administration researchers have developed

What we find in the academic journals is the accumu-lated work of many individuals and small groups There is

no invisible hand guiding researchers to areas where their efforts are needed most The interests of journal editors, boards, foundations, government grant programs, and pro-motion and tenure standards at universities may play a role

in the choice of research topics, but these forces probably

do not outweigh individual interests in the field of public administration It is an eclectic field by nature, and exter-nal funding does not play a major role in influencing the direction of the field Perhaps this research effort will en-courage academics to give some additional thought to the

possible benefits of any new research that they undertake.

There is room in public administration journals for articles

that will interest only academics, but we should also give

some thought to how researchers can better serve the needs

of practitioners

We do not want to suggest there should be a list of

ap-proved topics for researchers, but we hope they will

con-sider the practices, along with many other worthy issues,

when contemplating a new research project Of course,

academics should also seek to nurture productive

relation-ships with practitioners to foster new research ideas as well

as to support existing projects Such initiatives need not

hinder efforts to improve the sophistication of public ad-ministration research Public adad-ministration researchers carry some extra burdens that may not exist in other fields, but they do not come without additional rewards Their work allows them to contribute to a shared knowledge base benefiting both academics and practitioners Such efforts can have an impact that goes far beyond the pages of schol-arly journals Enhancing the linkage between academics and practice not only reinforces the traditional strengths

of the field, but also strengthens all aspects of the public administration enterprise

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ICMA Practices for Effective Local Government Management Staff effectiveness

Promoting the development and performance of staff and employees

throughout the organization (requires knowledge of interpersonal

relations; skill in motivation techniques; ability to identify others’

develop-mental strengths and weaknesses)

Coaching/mentoring: Providing direction, support, and feedback to

enable others to meet their full potential (requires knowledge of

feedback techniques; ability to assess performance and identify others’

developmental needs)

Team leadership: Facilitating teamwork (requires knowledge of team

relations; ability to direct and coordinate group efforts; skill in

leadership techniques)

Empowerment: Creating a work environment that encourages

responsibility and decision making in all organizational levels (requires

skill in sharing authority and removing barriers to creativity)

Delegating: Assigning responsibility to others (requires skill in defining

expectations, providing direction and support, and evaluating results)

Policy facilitation

Helping elected officials and other community actors identify, work toward,

and achieve common goals and objectives (requires knowledge of group

dynamics and political behavior; skill in communication, facilitation, and

consensus building techniques; ability to engage others in identifying

issues and outcomes)

Facilitative leadership: Building cooperation and consensus among

and within diverse groups, helping them identify common goals and

act effectively to achieve them; recognizing interdependent

relation-ships and multiple causes of community issues and anticipating the

consequences of policy decisions (requires knowledge of community

actors and their interrelationships)

Facilitating council effectiveness: Helping elected officials develop a

policy agenda that can be implemented effectively and that serves the

best interests of the community (requires knowledge of role/authority

relationships between elected and appointed officials; skill in

responsi-bly following the lead of others when appropriate; ability to

communi-cate sound information and recommendations)

Mediation/negotiation: Acting as a neutral party in the resolution of

policy disputes (requires knowledge of mediation/negotiation

principles; skill in mediation/negotiation techniques)

Service-delivery management

Ensuring that local government services are provided to citizens effectively,

efficiently, and responsively (requires knowledge of service areas and

delivery options; skill in assessing community needs, allocating resources,

and predicting the impact of service delivery decisions; ability to set

performance/productivity standards and objectives and measure results)

Functional/operational expertise: Understanding the basic principles

of service delivery in functional areas—such as public safety,

community and economic development, human and social services,

administrative services, public works

Operational planning: Anticipating future needs, organizing work

operations, and establishing timetables for work units or projects

(requires knowledge of technological advances and changing

standards; skill in identifying and understanding trends)

Citizen service: Determining citizen needs and providing responsive,

equitable services to the community (requires knowledge of information

gathering techniques)

Quality assurance: Maintaining a consistently high level of quality in

staff work, operational procedures, and service delivery (requires

knowledge of organizational processes; ability to facilitate

organiza-tional improvements)

Strategic leadership

Setting an example that urges the organization and the community toward experimentation, change, creative problem solving, and prompt action (requires knowledge of personal leadership style; skill in visioning, shifting perspectives, and identifying options; ability to create an environment that encourages initiative and innovation)

Initiative and risk taking: Demonstrating a personal orientation toward action and accepting responsibility for the results; resisting the status quo and removing stumbling blocks that delay progress toward goals and objectives

Vision: Conceptualizing an ideal future state and communicating it to the organization and the community

Creativity and innovation: Developing new ideas or practices; applying existing ideas and practices to new situations

Technological literacy: Demonstrating an understanding of information technology and ensuring that it is incorporated appropriately in plans

to improve service delivery; information sharing, organizational communication, and citizen access

Democratic responsiveness

Demonstrating a commitment to democratic principles by respecting elected officials, community interest groups, and the decision-making process; educating citizens about local government; and acquiring knowledge of the social, economic, and political history of the community (requires knowledge of democratic principles, political processes, and local government law; skill in group dynamics, communication, and facilitation; ability to appreciate and work with diverse individuals and groups and to follow the community’s lead in the democratic process)

Democratic advocacy: Fostering the values and integrity of representa-tive government and local democracy through action and example; ensuring the effective participation of local government in the intergovernmental system (requires knowledge and skill in intergovern-mental relations)

Diversity: Understanding and valuing the differences among individu-als and fostering these values throughout the organization and the community

Citizen participation: Recognizing the right of citizens to influence local decisions and promoting active citizen involvement in local governance

Organizational planning and management

Providing for the short-term and long-term acquisition, allocation and analysis of financial and human resources (requires knowledge and skill in budgeting, financial analysis, human resources management, and strategic planning)

Budgeting: Preparing and administering the budget (requires knowledge of budgeting principles and practices, revenue sources, projection techniques, and financial control systems; skill in communi-cating financial information)

Financial analysis: Interpreting financial information to assess the fiscal condition of the community, determine the cost effectiveness of programs, and compare alternative strategies (requires knowledge of analytical techniques and skill in applying them)

Human resources management: Ensuring that the policies and procedures for employee hiring, promotion, performance appraisal, and discipline are equitable, legal, and current; ensuring that human resources are adequate to accomplish programmatic objectives (requires knowledge of personnel practices and employee relations law; ability to project workforce needs)

Strategic planning: Positioning the organization and the community for events and circumstances that are anticipated in the future (requires knowledge of long-range and strategic planning techniques; skill in identifying trends that will affect the community; ability to analyze and facilitate policy choices that will benefit the community in the long run)