Extract

This chapter explores connections between theory, scholarship and practice in the field of public administration, and examines the global contexts in which practitioners operate. Public administration has long focused on national organizations and structures to the detriment of developing theory and practice concerning globalized entities; the field needs to further develop empirics-driven, multileveled-modeling theories that will help those in the field more effectively study public administration in a contextualized environment with the ultimate goal of better understanding burgeoning hypotheses as well as subsequent practical effects. To address these interconnected concerns, I want to first point to some shortcomings in the theory, but also explore some opportunities and pressing research topics that can energize public administration and lead to both theoretical advance and practical understanding. There is myriad public administration theory and research, but by far the key units of analysis are typically agencies – public organizations as part of a state apparatus or a subnational jurisdiction – their managers and, sometimes, frontline workers.