International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior: Volume 21 Issue 3

Introduction

Sub-administration: ideologies, myths and metaphors

The purpose of this paper is to recommend that public administration (PA) theory and practice should become more sensitive to its sub-administration, and to suggest how this can…

Making use of an enduring public administration myth: Refusal, subjective identification and the public interest

The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of the public interest. The central question is whether the public interest is a usable concept in a time of social and…

Myths as errors and inventions: the shadow of tradition in pa praxis

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impossible segregation of founding myths from any actual understanding of life in common, the public good and PA theorizing. The notion…

The public pursuit of closure: losses, fictions, and endings

This paper raises the possibility that closure is a myth, both in the sense of a narrative guiding a quest and in the sense of a social fiction. The paper aims to discuss this…

Neutrality as it never was: a short treatise on public administration theory

Is public administration neutral? Scholarship does not interpret public administration as neutral, even though, on moral–ethical grounds, it frequently advises neutrality for…

Governance myths: a typology

Myths matter. They are one of the ways by which we seek to make sense of the world; understanding myths helps us understand not only the world around us but ourselves as well…