Browsing by Subject "Publicness"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Developing Organizational Leaders to Manage Publicness: A Conceptual Framework
    (NASPAA, 2017) Merritt, Cullen C.; Farnworth, Morgan D.; Kienapple, Matt R.
    Students enrolled in programs accredited by the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) are increasingly seeking careers outside of classic government organizations. Considering the diversity of job placements with respect to sector (i.e., government, private for-profit, nonprofit), public affairs students may benefit from in-course instruction that aims to develop management competencies that are applicable to any sector. Educating students on publicness theory, specifically managing to achieve public outcomes (i.e., managing publicness), may position these current and future organizational leaders to identify and effectively manage certain structures and institutions in their organization and the external environment. Accordingly, this study provides a conceptual framework in the form of a research-intensive assignment that will equip public affairs students with a working view of how publicness applies to their organizations. By engaging in this research, students acquire practical tools that allow them to consider publicness in their management strategies and decisions regardless of their sector of employment.
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    Less is More? Publicness, Management Strategy, and Organizational Performance in Mental Health Treatment Facilities
    (Public Administration Quarterly, 2017) Merritt, Cullen C.; Cordell, Kathleen; Farnworth, Morgan D.; School of Public and Environmental Affairs
    In this study, the authors seek to identify mechanisms of publicness present within mental health treatment facilities and, subsequently, explore the constraints these mechanisms impose on facilities’ capacities to achieve public outcomes. Through grounded insights from senior managers in this field, political authority, namely through governmental funding and regulation, is identified by 43 of 46 respondents as being an influence on publicness. Authors then uncover the conditions during which publicness, in the form of political authority, constrains organizational achievement of public outcomes. In leveraging managerial perspectives, two distinct constraints emerged: publicness often inhibits organizational efficiency and produces mission drift within these facilities. Findings suggest that managers, under certain conditions (and where legally feasible), may provide greater effectiveness in fulfilling organizational goals and objectives and in achieving public outcomes by maintaining or decreasing an organization’s publicness. Fundamental to effectively managing publicness is understanding the mechanisms germane to both public outcome attainment and failure—the latter of which is explored here.
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    What Makes an Organization Public? Managers’ Perceptions in the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment System
    (American Review of Public Administration, 2019) Merritt, Cullen C.
    The question “What makes an organization public?” is a leading point of scholarly inquiry in the field of public administration. This study supplements existing theory on publicness by further exploring the primary influences on an organization’s publicness—influences identified by analyzing data from in-depth interviews with senior-level managers of mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities. Results from a grounded theoretical analysis of these managers’ perceptions provide support for a conceptual framework of organizational publicness in which political authority, horizontal engagement, and public engagement are associated with higher levels of publicness. Better understanding of the prism through which senior managers conceptualize publicness may enhance managerial awareness of the most salient structural and institutional mechanisms that empower treatment facilities to effectively support individuals suffering from mental health disorders such as substance abuse, emotional distress, and depression.