Practice as Lived Experience: The Missing Link in Public Administration Research

• Main Author: Elías, M.V (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Southern Public Administration Education Foundation 2022
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher

 As public administration and management are increasingly preoccupied with gaining status and legitimacy on the basis of scientific rigor, researchers seem to forget that the field they study is, above all, a practice. Practice questions concern how administrators interpret and act upon a situation, considering social norms and institutional notions that are shared. The relative merits of various modes of research is a long-standing issue in public administration, going back to the Simon-Waldo debate, but despite numerous arguments supporting the necessity of interpretive research approaches, the field has grown increasingly impervious to them. Hence, the need at this point for a wake-up call. This paper retrieves recent developments in interpretive research and makes a case for it in order to tackle our current challenging times, including heightened health risks during the Covid-19 pandemic to political upheaval and economic turmoil. © 2022, Southern Public Administration Education Foundation. All rights reserved.