What Makes an Organization Public? Managers’ Perceptions in the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment System

Abstract

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.