Abstract
This paper examines existing management concepts and practices that make up three contemporary approaches to public policy and public administration. We attempt to understand whether municipal public administrators and public administration graduate students validate these perspectives in “reality” versus “ideally.” Addressing the extent to which practicing public administrators and students identify with theoretical frameworks, which one(s) they deem most prominent, and how closely their preferred frameworks correspond to what they see in practice, we offer an exploratory analysis of results from 176 respondents through descriptive statistics, paired-sample t-tests, and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). We hypothesize significant differences with respect to 1) what is preferred and what is perceived in the workplace, 2) group membership (administrator, graduate student, or undergraduate student), and 3) gender (female or male). This research will help public administration educators bridge the gap between theory and practice and narrow the distance between the “is” and the “ought.”
This exploratory study examines public administration assumptions and practices. Specifically, we want to know whether city administrators and public administration graduate students adhere to scholarly perspectives or are more pragmatic. Probing these distinctions seems to be a unique undertaking as there are no empirical studies we know of exploring these issues with respondents like ours; that is, a sample representing both sides of the theory-practice equation. 1 We surveyed International City/County Management Association (ICMA) members nationwide to determine how they relate to the three perspectives identified by Light (1999) and also by Denhardt and Denhardt (2000, 2015a, 2015b). Subsequently, we administered the same survey items to students in our Master of Public Administration program, and to undergraduates taking classes in our department.
Scholars contend that we need to blend theory and practice to improve relationships and understanding between public administrators and citizens, enhance the public administration classroom experience, and assist managers doing their job (Hanbury et al., 2004: 573). Students tend to study perspectives in the classroom as if these frameworks are discrete systems of coherent ideas, but there is little or no scholarly work on whether practitioners perceive these distinctions. If they do not, then a more accurate portrayal of what happens in practice is needed.
Analyzing the theory-practice divide is critical as the field is questioning itself, manifesting healthy and productive debate. This disciplinary self-examination may be why Frederickson and Smith (2003) argue that there has been a loss of theoretical hegemony, giving public administration an identity crisis. Scholars understandably seek a greater understanding of how current and future practitioners see the world. Kristof-Brown et al. (2005) observe that it would be helpful to find ways to achieve consistent compatibility between a job candidate’s talents and those required for a specific job. Public administration education, by the same logic, should strive for harmony with the profession, presumably by engaging in a reciprocal partnership with practitioners to narrow gaps between theory and practice. Simply put, theory and practice should learn from each other.
We explore the three contemporary perspectives—Traditional Public Administration (TPA), New Public Management (NPM), and New Public Service (NPS). This paper examines these three perspectives based upon a brief, exploratory survey that uniquely breaks down Denhardt and Denhardt’s three perspectives into forced choice response items. Respondents select what they find in reality, or what tends to happen in organizations, and then what they would prefer in an ideal world, or what ought to happen. Although reality and the ideal are not expected to line up reliably in any context, Uveges and Keller (1998) argue that harboring juxtaposed multiple perspectives can present challenges both in the workplace and in the classroom. While they may enhance the practice and research of public administration through greater flexibility, strains among these competing perspectives may also pose unique challenges when teaching students to understand how professional managers think in the field. In the broadest sense, our research question is whether theory and practice agree about “what is” and “what ought to be.”
Literature review
The gap between what is being taught and what ought to be taught suggests an inability to keep up with the changing world, or what Tropman (2001) has called structural lag. The discipline has not remained stagnant, however, as there have been intellectual steps forward throughout history.
Keeping up with a changing world
Many public administration scholars have contemplated the need to improve and update public administration curricula in America to more accurately reflect the world around them, (i.e., Cox et al., 2010; Cunningham and Weschler,2002; Lazenby, 2010; Rubaii, 2016). For example, Cox et al. (2010: 334) conclude [I]n short, public administration must do what it has done since its earliest foundations: Prepare administrative generalists capable of managing our public institutions skillfully, competently, and ethically. We also need to do so in a way that best meets the evolving and changing needs of our public sector employers.
Part of the reason for this disconnect is that public administration faculty are using textbooks with content that is often out of date. Dunn (1988), for example, has argued that textbooks in the field often exhibit a mixture of various strands reaching back to the beginnings of systematic thinking about the field, which can create incoherence and confusion in the minds of students. More than 10 years later, Moody and Marlowe (2009) found that the same things have been taught for at least the last 25 years in public administration textbooks. They conclude that “[T]here remains the question of the match between practice and theory” (p. 54). Fritzen (2010) expects textbooks will have to continue to diversify as the discipline grapples with a changing reality.
Keeping up with a changing practice
Public administration educators need to regularly re-examine curriculum because, as Nelissen and Goede (2001) point out, the discipline will not change by itself, and we need more thinking on how to move forward. In the last quarter-century, public administration scholars have indicated specific changes that need to be implemented. Most of the skills that are increasingly important go beyond mere technical skills. Lazenby (2010) emphasizes “soft skills” in dealing with the politics of citizens and board members, as well as solving problems through community building. Dickinson and Sullivan (2014) find that more and more, public administration scholars are emphasizing the importance of these soft skills for public service leaders because these skills are necessary for a networked environment. Carey et al. (2017) define soft skills in terms of five subskills: problem-solving, coordination, brokering, flexibility, deep systems knowledge, and taking on emotional labor.
Often, these issues are not clear cut, but as Newman (1997: 3) pointed out a few decades ago, public administration classrooms will need to “practice and sharpen the cognitive skills that relate to tolerance of ambiguity, the management of affairs in the context of uncertainty, and the use of creativity in thinking through established institutions and processes that generate predictable problems in performance.” Frederickson (1999) argues for reflecting on Waldo’s emphasis on ethics and values as the core of public administration curriculum to teach students the importance of democracy and citizenship in preparation for public service, with the expectation that research would follow. The academy must also engage in a similar exercise to rethink and reconceptualize its pedagogical agenda for teaching aspiring city managers if it wants to keep ahead of a rapidly shifting curve. If, as the authors in this symposium assert, the skills and abilities that local government managers need to be successful in the political and economic environment of the coming decades are different from those needed in the past, then the place to begin to define those new skills, approaches, and perspectives is the curricula of the MPAs. (p. 330).
Gender
Gender may also play a role in the relevance of soft skills. Hutchinson (2007) found that public administration is also missing a gender perspective, especially concerning participation and inclusion. Eagly and Johnson (1990) found, for example, that more women exhibit a democratic, participative style of leadership compared to men, who were more autocratic. Another study found women leaders were more egalitarian than men, “possibly reflecting the special legitimacy problems that female leaders face if they attempt to take charge in a clear-cut, traditionally hierarchical manner” (Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt (2001: 794). Guy et al. (2008) as well as Guy and Newman (2004), in their studies on emotional labor, argue that women and men often fill different types of jobs creating an occupational divide. Therefore, work predominately filled by women, tends to include “emotive work thought natural for women, such as caring, negotiating, empathizing, smoothing troubled relationships, and working behind the scenes to enable cooperation.” This type of work is often unpaid and unseen. They continue: “Public service relies heavily on such skills, yet civil service systems, which are designed on the assumptions of a bygone era, fail to acknowledge and compensate emotional labor” (Guy and Newman, 2004: 289).
Lazenby (2010) finds in a study of 42 MPA programs with a concentration in local government that, while many MPA programs do well in some areas like basic administration, analytical and technical areas, and legal systems, they fall short in soft skills. For example, the author mentions leadership, group processes, human relations, and community building as lacking and questions whether MPA programs are doing a good enough job preparing students for the field.
Previous studies found similar results. Denhardt (2001), for example, argues that career administrators need three types of development—cognitive knowledge, interpersonal skills, and intrapersonal skills (p. 532). Managers, he finds, also need to be able to negotiate across organizational boundaries. Similarly, Cunningham and Weschler (2002) emphasize the need for curriculum on interpersonal issues, signaling the importance of human resource management, leadership, organizational behavior, etc. Likewise, the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) surveyed city and county managers in 2006 to explore what skills managers need to be taught in MPA programs. They found problem-solving/decision-making, integrity and ethics, leadership, teamwork, communication skills, and budgeting to be most important.
Zhang, Lee, and Yang (2012) outline how MPA programs may create ways to incorporate people skills in their curriculum. While some would say such skills are innate, faculty can integrate these skills through homework, in-class discussions, and case studies. This type of effort is essential. Local managers, for example, have to be able to communicate with stakeholders to either negotiate or compromise in the best interest of the community.
On the local level, Fox and Schuhmann’s (1999) survey of 524 city and town managers in 1997 revealed that women placed greater emphasis than men on such factors as city norms, public opinion, and citizen participation. Alternatively, men were more likely to designate tasks to staff and terminate employees who pose issues. This is amplified by Stewart (1990w), who found that gender scholarship has been slow to be adopted in textbooks, and was a stand-alone subject in less than a third of textbooks. Hawkesworth (2001) argues that even after achieving universal suffrage, women still lack full participation in governance, as is evidenced by the lack of women in elected office compared to men. Hutchinson (2007) finds that true inclusiveness has been elusive, with the goal too often to either work within the system or to criticize it. This cynical approach presumes that the current structure precludes radical change. However, these debates are often excluded from public administration curriculum. 2
Three perspectives
Denhardt and Denhardt (2000, 2015a, 2015b) describe three perspectives of public administration: 1) Traditional Public Administration (TPA), 2) New Public Management (NPM), and 3) New Public Service (NPS). These authors contend that while NPM has become the dominant perspective, NPS approaches have become more evident in public administration practice, as well as in research scholarship. Sorokin (1957) argues that these three perspectives are groupings without mutual exclusivity that also have internal contradictions. Crouch (2005) argues that instead of wholesale shifts in perspectives with a clear hegemonic way to govern, we are likely to find different reform processes with overlapping layers in hybrid arrangements. Likewise, “empirically speaking, it appears far easier to find arrangements that are hybrid” or “fuzzy” (Brandsen et al., 2005: 750). Therefore, we certainly acknowledge they are not perfect, but useful taxonomical guides for classification.
Traditional Public Administration (TPA)
Pfiffner (2004) describes the traditional model as being based on Max Weber’s understanding that public administration is primarily rational and legal, focusing on control carried out through a hierarchy of offices, with each worker subsequently reporting to a manager and held to account by that person. Woodrow Wilson’s (1887) article, The Study of Administration, asserts that it is the object of administrative study to discover, first, what government can properly and successfully do, and, secondly, how it can do these proper things with the utmost possible efficiency and at the least possible cost either of money or energy. In this way, the government should establish executives overseeing hierarchical organizations to realize the most dependable, neutral, and efficient operations possible. These executives were to be held separate from political influences through accountability measures, such as by elected political leaders’ oversight, to ensure little to no deviation from established policy. He called for the science of administration (Shafritz et al., 2012: 21). For years, the politics/administration (or policy/administration) dichotomy debate loomed over the field, although other controversies have since eclipsed it. This bureaucratic perspective nonetheless endures to provide a crucial underpinning for public administration (Lane, 1994).
New Public Management (NPM)
Windrum (2008) refers to NPM as a systemic innovation, which evolved over a period of time between senior managers and politicians. In the 1970s, the NPM perspective emerged from the fact that many public managers were confronted with the need to find innovative ways to realize results or to privatize tasks once provided by government(Dunleavy et al., 2006; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004). Osborne (2006) emphasizes that cost containment was an important force in the adoption of NPM approaches. Osborne and Gaebler (1992) preferred the term reinventing government when describing how principles of competition and private sector management were essential to this approach.
As Denhardt and Denhardt (2000, 2007, 2015) argue, agencies were encouraged to steer, not row, and therefore not assume the burden of service delivery themselves. Instead, they were implored to identify programs that other entities could carry out, whether through contracting or other agreements. The central notion is that NPM depends largely on market mechanisms. Osborne and Gaebler (1992) argue that America’s bureaucracy is no longer appropriate for the post-industrial age’s focus on decentralizing bureaucracy and authority while promoting competition.
By 2006, Dunleavy et al. (2006) had found NPM already in retreat, or at least in reformulation. Moreover, Pollitt and Sorin (2013), in their examination of Great Britain, find that NPM failed to cut costs. NPM critics argue that this perspective has been to some degree self-defeating by eschewing a broader view of public values, such as representation, fairness, participation, and justice beyond mere efficiency(Denhardt and Denhardt, 2000; Frederickson, 1997; Stivers, 2006). Fuglsang (2010: 69) finds that these movements away from NPM may be due to new communication and information technologies, which allow for more holistic approaches to public service management.
Moreover, NPM’s critics claim that it also sets up the potential for administrative evil (Zanetti and Adams, 2000), favors elites (Johnson and Callender, 2000), and that its central ethos on capitalism undermines public life (Ventriss, 2000). Felts and Jos (2000) go further, noting that NPM’s emphasis on capitalism has global implications. These critiques of NPM highlight the vulnerability of the perspective. As anomalies multiply, a crisis like the one Frederickson (1997) described becomes more likely.
New Public Service (NPS)
Ingraham et al. (1989:116) have called for a New Public Service to develop a new basis for public administrative legitimacy. While these authors’ ideas in preparation for Minnowbrook II were overshadowed by NPM’s ascendance, NPS was resurrected at the turn of the century by Light (1999) and Denhardt and Denhardt (2000, 2001, 2007, 2015).
NPS is prescriptive in its critique of NPM. Denhardt and Denhardt (2001) argue that as the role of government progresses beyond “rowing” and “steering” to the negotiation among citizens and community groups’ interests, shared values can and should emerge. These changes place crucial emphasis on the relationships that are built within public service networks and with citizens. Cooke and Muir (2012) report that “Recognising the importance of human relationships could revolutionise the role of the state” (p. 4). These are not unlike arguments previously made by Olliff-Cooper et al. (2009).
First, NPS tells government to serve citizens, not customers, as it envisions citizens debating issues to find common ground (Cooper, 1991; Frederickson, 1997; King et al., 1998; Stivers, 2008). Griffiths et al. (2009: 7) find, for example, a growth in what they call “assertive citizens,” who demand a say about the services they receive. This partly reflects, they argue, the expansion of education, expertise, and affluence as well as demographic changes.
Second, agencies ought to seek the public interest by encouraging citizens to stand up and be responsible. Third, public administrators should value citizenship over entrepreneurship, believing that the public interest is better served by public servants and citizens, rather than by entrepreneurial managers. Fourth, public managers are to think strategically and act democratically, emphasizing and facilitating collaborative processes. Fifth, managers should recognize that accountability is not simple—that is, managers must simultaneously abide by statutory and constitutional law, professional standards, citizen interests, and community values. Sixth, bureaucrats ought to serve rather than steer, utilizing shared, value-based leadership that allows citizens to speak their minds. Finally, we are to value people, not just productivity, prizing collaboration over competition.
Denhardt and Catlaw (2014: 207) describe the difference between NPM and NPS. NPM is built on economic concepts such as the maximization of self-interest. Alternatively, NPS is based on the public interest—the idea of public administrators serving citizens and becoming engaged with those they serve. According to Denhardt and Denhardt (2000: 557), the New Public Management and its surrogates have been established as the dominant perspective in the field of governance and public administration. However, in their later work, Denhardt and Denhardt (2015: 664) acknowledge that while NPM has become a dominant perspective, New Public Service ideals and practices, have become increasingly evident in public administration scholarship and practice. Scholars like Perry (2007) and Osborne et al. (2013) predict that NPS will gain more prominence as an administrative perspective. There is little or no work, however, regarding the juxtaposition of these three perspectives, especially in terms of empirical work to understand how students and practitioners think about them and where they fit.
Data and methods
We administered two waves of surveys—the first to working public administrators, and the next (see Figure 1) to students in the department. In August and September of 2016, we surveyed public managers through an instrument we created and posted as an embedded link in the monthly newsletter of the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), which is sent to the ICMA network and available on their website. The survey was not sent via email because of the number of researchers demanding members’ time (Carty, 2016). In response, we received 55 usable surveys. Admittedly, this represents only a tiny fraction of the population of ICMA members. Nevertheless, we present the results as a first look into practitioners’ thinking on TPA, NPM, and NPS in the field. We make no claims regarding generalizability, let alone cause and effect, but tentatively offer what insights we can based on the views of those willing to participate. Figure 1 lists the survey items and response categories. 3
Student survey.
In November and December of 2019, we administered a student survey containing the same substantive items and a more limited array of demographic items (Figure 1). Our approach captures responses from MPA students for comparison with practitioners. We also surveyed undergraduate students in our political science, pre-law and public administration classes, including our university core classes in American National Government, which provide access to a diverse comparison group of students representing all majors. The resulting 121 usable surveys from this second wave were added to our data set for an overall sample size of 176. 4 This approach allows us to compare practitioner results with student results regarding the “is” versus “ought” of public administration as expressed in the language of TPA, NPM, and NPS.
Our administrator survey included 16 substantive items utilizing language from Denhardt and Denhardt’s (2015: 26–27) chart “Comparing Perspectives: Old Public Administration, New Public Management, and New Public Service,” which describes eight aspects of each of the three perspectives. Each of the eight aspects from the three perspectives is articulated in the form of both a “reality” question and an “ideally” question. 5 For the student survey, we dropped the eighth item-pair (Which is the best description of how you view your job?), which would not necessarily apply to students in a comparable way. The student survey (Figure 1) is different in another way—the instrument was simplified, primarily by changing its layout, omitting most non-substantive items, and substituting the phrases “tend to” and “ought to” for “in reality” and “ideally,” respectively. Thus, we analyze the seven substantive items common to both instruments, constructing our six dependent variables (TPA Real, TPA Ideal, NPM Real, etc.) from these responses.
Our six dependent variables are additive indices, each combining responses to the seven substantive survey items. Items were paired in that the same questions were asked twice—once using the phrase “In reality” (administrators) or “tend to” (students) and again using “ideally” or “ought to.” For each of the seven item-pairs, respondents were asked to select one choice from among a list of three options, each an application of TPA, NPM, or NPS. Selecting a response indicated which perspective—TPA, NPM, or NPS—applied. If, for example, a respondent selected the TPA option for each of the seven reality items, that respondent would have a TPA Real of 7, and zeros for NPM Real and NPS Real. Thus, any respondent’s minimum value on any of the six dependent variables is zero, while the maximum possible value is seven.
Independent variables are group membership (i.e., administrator, MPA student, or undergraduate student) and gender. We control for age by entering this interval-level variable as a covariate. 6 Our hypothesis tests are of two kinds. After examining descriptive statistics, we first test for within-group differences between reality and the ideal. Next, we test for differences in the dependent variables attributable to group membership and gender.
Constructing 14 ordinal scale measures—two for each of the seven survey items (i.e., both the real and the ideal), we assigned 1 to TPA responses, 2 to NPM, and 3 to NPS, reflecting the historical sequencing of the perspectives.
7
These 14 ordinal scales permit seven comparisons of “real” against “ideal.” We expect divergence between the two, primarily because of the aspirational nature of theory. However, such discrepancy could also arise from gaps in how that theory is being taught. Perfect convergence between real and ideal, on the other hand, suggests praxis. Thus,
Our second type of hypothesis examines group membership and gender as independent variables predicting the six additive indices.
We do not expect perfect correspondence between our students and the professionals in their field, regardless of how much we would like to facilitate it. We also expect differences between our graduate students (predominantly MPA students) and the undergraduate sample, which is the most diverse (and the youngest) group. We also expect differences between undergraduates and administrators and recognize such differences may exceed in magnitude the corresponding differences between the two student groups, owing to the latter having much in common as students.
We do not expect perfect correspondence between females and males, regardless of how much we might like to imagine it. We expect females to express perceiving more TPA and/or NPM in reality, and less NPS, while preferring NPS in the ideal. We expect males, particularly undergraduate males, to prefer NPM. Thus, we control for gender in estimating group differences, as group differences are controlled in the results for gender. Descriptive statistics are presented in Table 1.
Descriptive statistics.
Results
Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics for variables common to both surveys. Variables TPA Real to NPS Ideal show the average number of responses, out of seven possible, reflecting the perspectives (i.e., TPA, NPM or NPS), and whether the item asks for the “ideal” or the “reality.” NPS shows the highest mean for “ideally,” (5.29) while TPA’s mean is higher for reality (2.92) than for “ideally” (0.83). In other words, TPA averaged about one “ideally” item out of seven, but almost three “reality” items out of seven, indicating that TPA is more prevalent in practice than preferred. While the NPS perspective is, on average, the most popular among respondents, it is, in practice, combined with other perspectives, especially TPA. Gender and group membership—administrator, graduate student, or undergraduate student—are represented by dummy variables, coded zero or one. Means of these variables indicate the proportion of respondents that are female (48%) and administrators (31%), etc. and their average age (34.81).
As Figure 2 shows, there is a higher degree of purity regarding what would be “ideal.” The predominance of NPS responses for the “ideally” items across groups (for the full sample, 76% of “Ideally” responses are NPS) reflects strong preference across all three groups for items fitting this most recent perspective. In “reality,” though, we see a more eclectic mix of all three perspectives. These dissimilar distributions illustrate the extent to which respondents identifying the NPM and TPA perspectives at their workplace would prefer to work under the NPS perspective.
Regarding perceptions of reality, responses are distributed more evenly across the three perspectives, with TPA reported more frequently (42% for the full sample) than either NPS (34%) or NPM (24%). Perceptions of reality also vary significantly across groups, unlike the more homogeneous perceptions of the “ideal.” Practitioners are more likely to report observing NPS in practice (57%), but majorities of graduate students (51%) and undergraduates (55%) tend to perceive TPA.
Purity and eclecticism. Note: Sample sizes = 168 (reality) and 169 (ideally).
Table 2 details the results for each survey item regarding the three perspectives, both “ideally” and in “reality.” Again, we see respondents preferring the NPS perspective. For all seven items, 75.4% of respondents, on average, chose NPS in the “ideal” category. In terms of other responses to these seven “ideally” statements, TPA averages 11.9% while NPM averages 12.7%.
Real and ideal statements by perspective.
Note: Cell entries are percentages.
The general patterns in Table 2 reinforce the varied distribution for the “reality” statements relative to their corresponding “ideal” statements. The clearest example is found in the responses to the item asking how administrators characterize the people they serve. In reality, all three perspectives are represented, ranging from TPA at 27% to NPS at 41%, with NPM in the middle at 32%. In contrast, the overwhelming preference (i.e., the ideal) is NPS (58%). In all statement pairs, NPS is preferred (ideally) at a higher rate than it is observed in reality. Notable is the strength of the public service mantra among our respondents, with 90.2% of respondents expressing as ideal the motivation to provide a public service and contribute to society. A slim majority of respondents (54%) report this as the motivational basis they see in reality. On the other hand, with respect to characterization of the public interest, NPS is preferred as the ideal (57%), while NPM is dominant in reality (45%). In other words, while there is solid acceptance of the NPS perspective in the abstract, it is less prevalent in reality.
Turning our attention to the respondent groups, we scored the three perspectives on an ordinal scale (i.e., TPA = 1, NPM = 2, and NPS = 3), reflecting the progression of ideas across time, and performed paired-sample t-tests for each subgroup and for the full sample. We hypothesize higher means for ideally than for reality, owing to the preference for NPS being more prevalent than its use in practice, and the tendency for inertia to cause practice to lag behind theoretical innovations (Tropman, 2001).
Five of the seven items show statistically significant differences between reality and the ideal across all respondent groups. In terms of averages across survey items, the administrator group is the most enamored with NPS (mean = 2.72, scale of 1 to 3) and the most likely to select NPS as reality (2.40). Undergraduate students, on the other hand, are least likely to select NPS as representing their perception of reality (1.63), while graduate students (1.76), and females (1.82) also fall below 2 regarding their perceptions of reality. Females (2.68) and administrators (2.72) share strong preference for NPS, but females (2.09) are much less likely than administrators (2.64) to report NPS as their reality. Taking into account all items and respondents, we find perceptions of reality more reflective of TPA and NPM, but an expressed ideal aligning closely with NPS. Of the subgroups in Table 3, the most substantial gaps between reality and the ideal are those of undergraduates (.98, or 2.61–1.63), females (.86), and graduate students (.84). Administrators see the smallest difference, on average, between preference and practice (.32, or 2.72–2.40).
Two-factor ANCOVA and difference of means results.
Notes: Significant factors, F-ratios (*p < .05; **p < .01), R2 and N (number of cases) refer to the full factorial ANCOVA models (Bonferroni adjustment). Cell entries are the adjusted means (covariate is age; mean = 35.3 years) associated with each perspective. (Unadjusted means, when different, are shown in parentheses.) Significant differences among subgroups are italicized and underlined; subscripts a (administrators), g (graduate students), and u (undergraduates) indicate which subgroup(s) are significantly different. Statistically significant gender differences (p < .05) are bold-faced. Within-group gender differences are evaluated separately using unadjusted means and independent samples t-tests.
We test for group differences using six analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) models. The six dependent variables are the average number of responses for each of the three perspectives (TPA, NPM and NPS) across the seven ideally and seven reality statements. Thus, each of the six dependent variables is, for any individual respondent, the sum of seven numbers, each either zero or one, summing to how many times (out of seven possible) the respondent chose that perspective. Group differences on these dependent variables are tested along gender and group membership dimensions. ANCOVA results are summarized in Table 3.
We test a 3 × 2 two-factor analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) model with group membership (i.e., administrator, graduate student, or undergraduate), and gender (female, male) as main effects, and age (interval-level measure) as the covariate. 8 ANCOVA first adjusts the dependent variable to what it would be if every case started equally on the covariate (Tabachnick and Fidell, 1996), which in this case is age. We control for age to distinguish its effects from group membership, which does exhibit significant bivariate correlation (r = .80, p < .01). Once the dependent variable has been adjusted to equalize cases on the covariate, ANCOVA tests for effects from the factors—group and gender—and their interaction effects. 9 Table 3 shows the results for group membership, gender, and their interactions.
Table 3 reveals statistically significant differences for group membership (H2) in the TPA (F = 15.74, p < .01) and NPS (F = 22.63, p < .01) reality models, with administrators selecting TPA far less frequently (1.5 times out of seven items, adjusted for age), on average, than graduate students (3.6) or undergraduate students (3.7), and NPS far more frequently (3.7 to 2.1 and 1.5, respectively). No significant group differences emerge with respect to NPM, either in reality or as an ideal. Using chi-square, we tested for group differences on these seven reality items individually. All seven “is” items significantly differ among the three groups. When controlling for gender, only the public interest item fails to reach statistical significance for males (5.715, df = 4, p = .22).
With respect to the “ideally” models, it is instead gender that affects TPA and NPS, with females preferring TPA less (0.6) than males (1.1), and NPS more (5.6 to 5.0). Separate t-tests for independence of sample means show significant gender differences for both the administrator and graduate student subgroups, though not for the undergraduate student subgroup. Administrators’ perceptions of reality follow a pattern similar to that of their preferences, while the opposite is true of graduate students, undergraduates, and females (except for female administrators). 10 Examining gender differences within each group (admin, grad student, undergrad) using chi-square, we find three “ideally” survey items that differentiate the genders—characterizing the public interest (i.e., as constituents, customers, citizens); approach to using authority (rowing, steering, serving); and, how objectives are achieved (by agencies, incentives, or coalitions). These items are driving the gender differences regarding the ideal.
Discussion
Like Denhardt and Denhardt (2015b), we originally suspected NPM was still the dominant perspective among the respondents in our sample. We nevertheless find NPS to be considered ideal across all seven items, while TPA is perceived as reality by a plurality with respect to four of the seven statements (i.e., policy achievement, accountability, use of authority, and organizational structure). This reinforces Park (2011) who found that NPM and what they called “post-NPM values” were found “side-by-side.”
NPS dominance characterizes reality, though, for only the two statements reflecting perceptions of what motivates administrators and whom they serve. In describing their reality, respondents characterize only the public interest primarily in terms of the NPM perspective (45% for NPM to 28% for TPA and 27% for NPS). When respondents were asked about their perspective “in reality,” an interesting difference emerged between practitioners and students (see Figure 2). While 57% of practitioners perceived NPS, a majority of students perceived TPA. However, this difference largely evaporates when the ideal is asked, as students prefer NPS. Both groups—practitioners and students—seem to agree that NPS is the ideal while disagreeing about reality. These results are suggestive of a transition to the NPS perspective that is well underway in the abstract, yet incomplete in practice. 11
Our findings similarly bolster NPS’s focus on democracy and participation found in scholars such as Franklin and Ebdon (2007), who promote the need for a public administration more focused on participatory budgeting. Likewise, early public administration scholars like Waldo, Parker Follett and Frederickson advocated for greater democracy in the workplace. Zhang, Lee, and Yang (2012), Cunningham and Weschler (2002), and Denhardt (2001) stress the need for more humanistic values.
Likewise, in Table 3, we also find gender differences as women tend to prefer NPS at a higher level than men, especially in 1) characterizing the public interest (i.e., as constituents, customers, citizens); 2) approach to using authority (rowing, steering, serving); and, 3) how objectives are achieved (by agencies, incentives, or coalitions). Women were more interested in characterizing those they serve as citizens and working with others in the community, reminiscent of Stewart (1990), and Hutchinson’s (2007) call for practitioners and academics to recognize gender difference in public administration curriculums, i.e. to integrate gendered perspectives and highlight that gender differences matter in practice.
Conclusion
Why do students and practitioners differ on the “reality” items? One possibility is Tropman’s (2001) notion of structural lag, where social structures fail to keep pace with the changing environment around them. In this case, it seems possible that public administration curriculum is falling behind practice. Tropman and Wooten (2010) find that structural lag stems from at least two causes. First, people are often blind to how the environment around them is changing. Second, even if they do see change around them, it requires “them to realign and reprioritize, which means that some of the things they are doing they need to drop, and they need to acquire new skills/products. That is resisted.” (p. 52).
Since public administration scholarship has found that educational and professional experiences can shape value preferences (Edwards et al., 1981), MPA faculty should seek more experiential service-oriented ways to invigorate their curriculums. This may mean revitalizing their programing to reflect more democratic practices and “soft skills” in balance with technical and analytical skills. One way to do this is through internships, where students may gain more considerable experience with a real-life application(s) of course concepts (Gerlach and Reinagel, 2016). Hornbein and King (2012), in a study of National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA)-accredited MPA programs, found that while most students were interested in learning more about public participation, there were few MPA programs offering courses reflecting citizen engagement. The authors recommend a greater emphasis on such programming.
In another example, Aaron and Watson (2010) describe their novel approach of an MPA in City Hall program, which is a more user-friendly approach to teaching local government. In another example, Wheeland and Palus (2010) argue that adjunct educators with ample experience help give students another way to learn from a practitioner. In addition, programs may encourage students to obtain professional memberships in their respective subdisciplines, offer more problem-solving projects, and invite professional speakers, among other ideas. These additions to a curriculum resonate with Schon’s (1983) reflection-in-action, where thinking and doing are harmonized.
Future research
This exploratory analysis found significant differences between student and practitioner in perceptions of reality, as well as differences in gender perspectives regarding what would be ideal. However, the data do not address why these differences exist. While our project addresses the “what” question, we think future research could also focus on the “why.” For example, why do public administrators seem to believe their work closely aligns with NPS values, while students do not believe that is the reality? We believe such an investigation to be one example of a worthy next step. In any case, research that can help public administration educators bridge the gap between theory and practice might also help them narrow the distance between the “is” and the “ought.”
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
