There are many reasons to conduct research. Indeed, there are many different types of research, but it is not often (or often enough) that we ask the Socratic question:
Why do we do this thing?
Hosted at the House of Lords by Lord Bichard, the recent PMM Live! event—‘Sustainable Public Management: Lessons for Impact’— comprised presentations that reminded us of the importance of ensuring research remains congruent with the needs of the real world. Even so-called scientific ‘blue sky’ or curiosity-driven research must ultimately have an applied output in order to justify the investment in resources for its continuance. For example, the effects of climate change are already apparent, however much we may debate the extent to which they are naturally occurring cyclical deviations from the climactic norm or something more pernicious induced by human actions, the result is the same; change for which we require co-ordinated global planning and management of resources. Applied and basic scientific research will remain central to our search for sustainable energy and industry; lifestyle changes that ensure the continued eradication of poverty but without the malign effects of environmental degradation remain a core goal of the global community. But there is also a need for countries to ensure that their public administration engages in applied social science research to deliver the fruits of scientific innovation in the form of sustainable public services.
Research impact
In the UK, the evolution of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) has focused the academic community on the impact of its research. This has ensured a closer attention to the needs, problems and concerns of the practitioner groups. In the pages of Public Money & Management, we have always sought to bring together the research engagement of academics in terms of the practical impact of social science inquiry to practitioners; to integrate theory and practice. Indeed, the PMM dynamic has been influenced by the sort of questions set out by the founders of modern public administration, including Dwight Waldo who famously stated that public administration is a ‘subject matter in search of a discipline’ and suffers from an ‘identity crisis’ (1968, quoted in Miller, Citation2012, p. 4). That view can be traced back to his post-war work in 1948 when the reconstruction of war ravaged societies demanded a coherence and application of resources and knowledge equal to that expended during the conflict. But the recent generation of academics and practitioners have also recognized the importance of drawing together the various filaments of public administration (a concatenation of public finance, budgeting, audit, public law, public sector management, policy analysis, planning and so forth) in order to address the issues raised by the need for sustainable public sector management in a time of austerity, and to do so on a comparative basis.
Managing and modernizing the public sector
It may be argued that it is fairly straightforward (or at least less challenging) to manage large public sector organizations in a time of rapid growth, but it takes a different skill set and the application of evidence taken from research-based options to lead these essential institutions in a period of rapid retrenchment, cutbacks and rising expectations. These rising expectations and demand for services in richer societies are triggered by the perfect storm of an ageing population, austerity, housing shortages, large-scale increased inward migration and a restless global economy that defies the commands of national governments. All this is overlain by the imperative to address the need for sustainability. Core public services in criminal justice, health, education and social protection are precisely that—core and essential for the maintenance of a civilized society. Devising management systems and approaches, attracting, training and retaining leaders and professional cadres to devise strategies that design inputs to deliver service outputs that will achieve the required outcomes is fiendishly complicated, yet it has to be done. And it is done on a routine annual and continuing basis. Societies that lack the basic human resource of technically skilled and experienced public sector professionals are sorely tested in their goal of delivering services efficiently, effectively and economically. This has been the experience of the EU in terms of trying to modernize the public sector of several of the most recent accession states.
PMM's contribution
Public Money & Management has sought to deliver real impact in terms of ensuring its special themed issues and papers remain in the thick of the discussion and contribute positively to that debate. New themes due to be published in 2016 and 2017 include:
International (public sector) accounting.
Managing and accounting for sustainable development across generations in public services.
Public sector reforms and workplace ill-treatment.
Islamic public management—does it exist, what is it, and why and how should we study it?
Obstacles to and opportunities for politicians’ use of accounting information.
The charity sector in a changing world.
Redrawing the boundaries of the third sector and civil society in troubled times.
This issue
In this issue we begin with the debate on interdisciplinarity and applicability, with Jurgen Willems asking ‘should public management research be more interdisciplinary?’ While Christopher Pollitt turns to the theme of sustainability and the role of public administration, debating whether climate change is the ultimate wicked issue for public sector managers. The issue continues with substantial papers that tackle Willems’ question and take us on a journey to explore and attempt to understand some of the concerns addressed by public administration in significantly different parts of the globe: the Government Transformation Programme in Malaysia; the National Roads Authority in Papua New Guinea; directly elected mayors in Italy; and contributions that focus on regulatory impact assessment; housing policy; risk disclosure; GP commissioning; school student performance; quantitative easing; procurement and policy outcomes; and public service markets. It is an eclectic issue reflecting the original concerns of the founders of public administration—scholars and practitioners who were acutely aware of the connection between public administration and finance, the need for good management practice alongside accountability, audit, evaluation, the application of the rule of law and the pursuit of excellence in policy-making and research that seeks evidence on which to base difficult political decisions and set out coherent, comprehensive strategies designed to achieve clear outcomes. It is public administration in many of its guises, which is what Don K. Price referred to as ‘the seamy side of politics’—the side that actually gets things done.
References
- Miller, K. (2012), Chapter 1. In Diamond, J. and Liddle, J. (Eds), Emerging and Potential Trends in Public Management: An Age of Austerity (Emerald Books).
- Price, D. K. (1983), America's Unwritten Constitution (Louisiana State University Press).
- Waldo, D. (1968), Public administration. The Journal of Politics, 30, 2, pp. 443–479. doi: 10.2307/2128449