LIST OF PANELS

The understanding of a singularity, either through the reconstruction of its "deep" mechanisms or through comparisons, has been a traditional means of scientific and professional research. Case studies probably derive from a commonsense way to draw lessons from experience. But they grew to become a sophisticated tool in the social sciences. In Robert Yin’s widely cited perspective, they evolved into a key strategy for those interested in the “how” and the “why” of phenomena.

The sensitivity to “the how” in particular, attracted a growing theoretical attention from the policy sciences in general, and from public administration / management in particular. But what a public management case study should be, if it is to raise up to the challenge of contributing to deeper understanding of a state's "black boxes", as well as to better design, management and evaluation of public policy, is an expanding area of methodological debate.

In the policy sciences, it is often credited to Mark Moore to have taken the first steps to salvage the gap between cases about management and theories about public management. Moore’s key ideas on the strategic management of public organizations, grounded in compelling “imaginary” cases, provided a new fertile ground.

One can also see Eugene Bardach and Michael Barzelay, in complementary moves, drawing the attention to the “how”, as a defining part of the “what” and the “why” in cases. Bardach put in heuristic terms what many clever practitioners have always known: an experience in a source site must go through careful analysis before becoming useful for a target site. Most of this analysis needed to deal with the “how”, thus coining the idea of “smart practices” as a (mostly friendly) contribution “best practice” thinking.

Barzelay posited case studies are not only a legitimate research option for public management, but the defining instrument to produce critical knowledge both for scientific and professional purposes. Embedded in a venerable tradition of understanding public organizations as purposeful phenomena –artificial organisms or “artifacts”– Michael Barzelay drew a genealogy aligning Herbert Simon’s artificial organisms, Henry Mintzberg’s organizational configurations, Eugene Bardach’s smart practices and Mark Moore’s public-value oriented strategic management. The blend produced a compelling array of “questions to asks” and “answers to find” when understanding why and how public management artifacts –organizations, campaigns, systems— design fulfills the mission of providing for alignment of outcomes to purpose in “working phenomena” or “functioning wholes”.

This panel invites all scholars, “pracademics” and students interested in the above and willing to share case investigations with central or partial focus on how public organizations and undertakings are managed, as well as scholars and students interested in discussing the theoretical and methodological dimensions of such research. Focus on developing countries or on critical sectors of public policy is especially welcome, as these can be crucial contributions both to policy sciences and to governance strategies.

This panel will only accept online presentations. 

The panel welcomes papers taking the following formats:

1) Policy science case studies, single or comparative, in which the in-depth understanding of management processes / mechanisms / dimensions is a central or key reserach interest.

2) Public administration professional case studies in which the reverse-engineering of design and management of public organizations and undertakings is a central or key reserach interest.

3) Methodological and theoretical discussions on how to design and conduct public management case studies, as well as on the scientific and/or professional status of public management case studies.

In-work papers and theses are especially welcome, as well as developing countries researchers.