Tag: Practitioners

My review of The Ethics of Dissent just published

~ David S. Reed ~ Leave a comment

My review of The Ethics of Dissent by Rosemary O’Leary shows that this classic about guerrilla government is not just for ethics courses.

(If you hit a paywall, use this free link for friends of Center for Public Administrators https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/TEXWXUR9UYAWMVET5XGH/full?target=10.1080/15236803.2023.2182170 )

UPDATE: The friends link has been used up, so if you hit a paywall you can send me your email address and I’ll send you a pdf.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15236803.2023.2182170

Practitioners: Present at the Northeast Conference on Public Administration

~ David S. Reed ~ Leave a comment

If you’re a Public Administration practitioner, consider presenting at NECOPA 2022. Have a case from your work that others could learn from? Technique you developed or tried out? I’m available to bounce ideas off. I’ve presented at NECOPA. The call for proposals is at https://northeastpublicadmin.org/

“Don’t Exclude Real Practitioners with the Imaginary Ones” is now Peer Reviewed and Published

~ David S. Reed ~ Leave a comment

The gap between academic research and practice in public administration is discussed often, but practitioners are rarely included in the discussion. My new paper in Administrative Theory & Praxis says that for the public administration research community to engage with practitioners, it should:

  • Expand the concept of public administration literature to include case reports by practitioners, which have long been an important part of medical literature.
  • Develop norms that reduce the risk to a practitioner’s career from sharing her innovations and experience.
  • Include practitioners in gatekeeping institutions, such as conference program committees, journal editorial boards, and peer reviewers.

The paper is available for free download at https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/7SSKBPY7ZEZA5MMRRQ6X/full?target=10.1080/10841806.2021.1910412

Don’t throw out the real practitioners with the imaginary ones.

~ David S. Reed ~ Leave a comment

The public administration research community is obsessed with serving an imaginary image of public administration practitioners, according to Professor Muhammad Azfar Nisar writing in Administrative Theory & Praxis. He suggests that researchers should stop trying to serve the imaginary practitioner, and instead engage directly with the public. I have a different suggestion; that researchers should engage with real practitioners, rather than imaginary ones. See how and why in my paper at https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/db7pt/

Private screening: New Movies about Government Workers’ Side Projects

~ David S. Reed ~ Leave a comment

Filmmakers in the U.S. and Canada have released documentaries about the creative side projects of government workers. Center for Public Administrators and the ASPA National Capital Area Chapter, held a private screening of both films, and discussion with the U.S. filmmaker and stars, on May 15.

The American production is Creative Feds, which features two government workers who are musicians on the side. It shows each performing with their bands at festivals, dances, and in one case a National Public Radio show, demonstrating that these side projects are not mere hobbies, but serious commitments that have met with some success. (Screenings of Creative Feds are listed at http://creativefeds.com/screenings/ )
jeniffer-playing-300x199
Jennifer Cutting in Creative Feds

The Canadian production is a web series entitled The Secret Lives of Public Servants. Three episodes have been released so far, featuring government workers who on the side are an artist, a comic book creator and a cosplayer. All the episodes touch on the tension between the workers’ creative side projects and the conformity expected in their government jobs. This is particularly the case for the artist, Marc Adornato, whose art is explicitly political and triggered a police investigation of one of his public performance projects. (The police report concluded that performance art is not a crime.) The episodes are available at http://amenjafri.com/2017/11/19/the-secret-lives-of-public-servants/
marc-adornato-300x1691
Marc Adornato in The Secret Lives of Public Servants

The filmmakers for both of these projects said part of their motivation was to show the public that government employees are full human beings, rather than the stereotype of faceless bureaucrats. But there is a more important message for public sector workers ourselves. We do not need to wait until we can afford to leave secure government jobs before seriously pursuing our ambitions, whether they are artistic careers like the people portrayed in these documentaries or any other aspirations. A government job puts some constraints on our side projects, in terms of time, conformity and otherwise, but the documentaries show that we can work around those constraints.

Published in PAR: Case Reports and Open Source Work Products in Public Administration

~ David S. Reed ~ Leave a comment

In a communication published in Public Administration Review, David Reed advocates two types of public administration professional literature that are not research.

The first is case reports, as are published in medical journals. A case report is a description by a practitioner of a situation she encountered, what she did about it, and the results. These differ from the case studies used in public administration teaching and scholarship. Case studies focus on how the case illuminates a technique being taught or a theory being considered, but one value of case reports is presenting specifics that do not fit any existing framework. For example, AIDS research started with a case report of an inexplicable case of Kaposi’s sarcoma. Another difference is that case studies are typically by a researcher who was not involved in the events, while a case report is by a practitioner who handled the case.

The second type of non-research literature is open source work products. The original definition of open source was disclosing the human-readable “source code” of a computer program. But open source has evolved to mean any type of work product that is shared publicly so that anybody can contribute improvements to it. The work products that public administrators could make available for open source collaboration include procedures, position descriptions for personnel, statements of work for contracting, and other artifacts we produce and use in our practice.

Reed’s communication is in Public Administration Review (paywalled) and  SocArXiv (open access).

Public Administration Practitioners at Academic Conferences: Why to Present and How to Succeed

~ David S. Reed ~ Leave a comment

Most practitioners never attend any of the public administration academic conferences, but it could be well worth your time. And if you attend, it makes sense to give a presentation. My new working paper advises why to present, and how to do it successfully.

Here are some excerpts:

Presenting at a conference is evidence of your expertise. This is especially useful if your job does not provide much opportunity for accomplishments that are recognized outside your organization.

Many people practicing public administration were educated in a different field, so a conference can be an introduction to the public administration professional community..[T]he people you meet…tend to be the most innovative practitioners, the best prospects for collaboration within and outside your job, and the most willing to share information.

A practitioner can present her own experience with techniques she has applied or cases she has participated in. A frank presentation of what she tried, what worked, what failed and what she observed can show other practitioners what they want to copy or avoid, and can show academics a specific instance of phenomena they might want to study more generally…Your new information does not need to be broad in scope to be valid and valuable.

[A]fter your proposal is accepted and your panel is scheduled, you should do outreach to encourage people attending the conference to come to your panel. If you know anybody who will be at the conference, then contact them personally to invite them to attend your panel. If somebody on another panel is speaking on a topic related to yours, then contact them to say you are looking forward to attending their panel and suggest that they attend yours.

I also give examples of presentations by practitioners at the 2015 Northeast Conference on Public Administration (NECoPA), which I helped organize.

The working paper “Public Administration Practitioners at Academic Conferences: Why to Present and How to Succeed” is at
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2765800