Public administration managers are confronted with new and highly complex challenges emerging at a rapid rate. This situation requires a reimagining of public administration education to prepare public administration managers to capably deal with these challenges. While the Master of Public Administration (MPA) is globally used as vehicle for…

Traditionally, civil servants and public officials are highly educated and have strong administrative expertise. Public financial managers have been regarded as 'guardians of the public purse', who have solid budgeting, accounting and auditing skills. However, the development of 'mega-trends' such as digitalization and e-government affect the…

Research on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) has tended to have a bad reputation within the field of public administration. In this manuscript, I discuss the issue of impactful research within the field and provide an argument for why we should be focusing more on pedagogical research than more traditional avenues. Not only does…

In this conceptual paper, we aim to revisit key research themes in contemporary organizational institutionalism and by doing this, redirect attention of scholars in public administration towards the most promising domains of application of institutional theory. We propose to shift attention from enabling and power-induced framing of institutional…

On the 75th anniversary of Herbert A Simon's "Proverbs of Administration," it is fitting to consider its place in the public administration canon, with an eye to contemporary realities. In Proverbs, Simon interrogated prevailing mid-century "principles of public administration." But even as he reduced in rank each…

Courses and training in public decision-making have often disappeared from Public Administration curricula. This paper argues that this is unfortunate as skills therein are severely needed to steer developments towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Whereas some see this as a macro development that befalls countries, this paper argues…

The COVID-19 pandemic forced surprised governments worldwide to act fast and decisively, often revealing lack of preparation for this kind of situation. However, such crises are expected to occur far more frequently than ever before. To keep societies prospering, governments, administrations, and civil servants will have to adapt quickly and…

Research has documented that applied projects that are experiential and grounded in the course contents offer effective hands-on experience to students to understand the course materials and apply their learnings in a meaningful way. Experiential learning is particularly relevant to Master of Public Administration Programs (MPA), which are usually…

The use of algorithms and automation of public services is not new, but in recent years there has been a step change in processing power and a decrease in the price of these technologies, which means we are seeing more widespread use. These advances are reframing our perception of what matters in ways that impact the ethical dimensions of…

Public administration educators in the United States have renewed their interest in incorporating an international perspective into their teaching. Why is this perspective important for students and how can educators integrate it meaningfully? In this article, I provide an argument for the internationalization of public administration curricula,…

Case study analysis has been used for many years across a variety of disciplines. One of the primary advantages of case study analysis is its ability to illustrate the nexus between theory and practice. This paper explores the use of case study analysis as a culminating experience in a large Master of Public Administration (MPA) program in the…

Despite the fact that our knowledge on how policies are designed has substantially improved during the last two decades, prescriptive literature on policy formulation remains largely disconnected from these new findings. The article examines five major assumptions upon which policy formulation is still predominantly based: (a) there is one way…

When crises occur, revisiting given knowledge and practices seems sensible and necessary. For instance, the recent financial crisis in 2008 lead to questioning the role played by financial institutions and business schools in precipitating the crisis by allowing questionable professional ethics to go unchallenged. There is a current crisis in…

Public policy is frequently characterised as a sub-discipline of political science which is practically oriented and concerned with what government does and does not do. Further, policy analysis can also be characterised as concerned with either the analysis 'of policy' or 'for policy'. This clearly has implications for the design and delivery of…

Global disruptions are marking our days and calling on individuals, institutions, and the State for institutional change. Given the need to understand changing processes and their implications for society and public policy, it is vital to equip Public Administration students with the knowledge of relevant theories to assess the complexity of such…