PMRC 2025

This proposed workshop introduces methods used for the analysis of networks in public affairs research, particularly public management and public policy. Network concepts are now increasingly used to describe how stakeholders in public policy and management form and maintain relationships, which in turn help to understand decision making, learning, innovation, and other outcomes of interest in the public sphere. Network concepts are prevalent across a wide range of social science disciplines, and are often used as a tool to study complex phenomenon such as cooperation, diffusion of innovation, and social capital. Public managers with an understanding of the theory and methods of networks are better equipped to deal with complex, emerging problems within a “VUCA” world of vulnerability, uncertainty, complexity, and uncertainty.

This workshop will introduce participants to three major research questions in the study of policy and public management networks, including:

1) How do various types of networks influence public management and policy problems of interest?
2) How do networks self-organize and evolve over time?
3) What contextual or institutional factors influence how networks evolve and influence problems?

Although the workshop is theoretically motivated, the primary focus is the development of grounded skills that participants may use to gather, manage, and analyze network data. The following topics are addressed through hands-on tutorials and grounded examples from real-world research studies:

• The measurement of networks, including organizational networks, using secondary data and survey,
• How to manage these data in Excel, R, and Visone,
• Visualization of network data using R and Visone,
• Quantitative description of networks using measures of node centrality, clustering, modularity, and segregation,
• Network comparison and correlation using quadratic assignment procedure (QAP),
• Understanding network dynamics using exponential random graph models (ERGM).

This workshop is designed for the beginner with no prior training in network analysis.

Theorizing is an important part of the academic contribution required by articles in highly ranked public administration journals, yet it is also something that many researchers struggle with.

In this full-day workshop with the editors of JPART and PPMG, we focus on academic writing with a particular emphasis on developing a theoretical contribution.

The workshop format includes presentations by the editors on requirements and tips, open discussions and exchanges of experiences among workshop participants, as well as individual feedback on each participant’s own paper.

• Part 1 Morning: Making a theoretical contribution
o Presentation of both journals – what does a JPART and PPMG paper look like
o Ways to make a theoretical contribution (which many researchers struggle with) – and how this is different in JPART and PPMG

• Part 2 Afternoon: Application to participants’ own papers
o Groups, discussion, editors visit all groups and give feedback
o General lessons and workshop conclusion

Organized by the JPART editors Ole Helby Petersen and Kim Sass Mikkelsen & the PPMG editors Jessica E. Sowa and Kim Isett

Statement of Objectives & Relevance to the Field
Our objective is to bring together an international group of scholars working on questions related to the management and leadership of city governments (and municipal authorities more broadly). We invite participation from scholars examining city management and leadership from a theoretical perspective as well as empirically, using quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods.

The workshop aims to generate inclusive discussions about the meaning and measurement of effective city management and leadership, the causes, correlates, and supporting conditions of effective city management and leadership, and the effects and consequences of city management and leadership. Possible themes for discussion during the workshop include the importance of collaboration and innovation for city management and leadership as well as the use of data and evidence, public narrative, and time management.

In line with the theme of this year’s conference, we also welcome a discussion of how the promotion of democratic values relates to city management and leadership. Finally, the pre-conference workshop will also serve as a space to develop a new network for scholars of public management and public administration working on cities and local vernments.

For the past 40 years, scholars have analyzed public-private relationships through the lenses of agency theory, transaction cost economics, and resource dependency theory. Many aspects of these theories may span national boundaries, such as information asymmetry, challenges of aligning incentives, and the importance of power dynamics. However, there are also important differences between countries that influence both the theoretical understanding and practical implementation of public procurement. Critical differences include institutional contexts, cultural dimensions, market and economic conditions, and policy and administrative capacity, among others. These differences are understudied in research on government contracting and public procurement.

In their seminal article Brown, Potoski, and Van Slyke (2006) identify three considerations with important implications for the success or failure of government contracts: values, institutions, and markets. Since then, many studies have tackled the relative importance of market elements, largely centered on ideas of asset specificity and measurability. Fewer studies have addressed values and institutions, despite Brown, Potoski, and Van Slyke’s assertion that “values, institutions, and service markets are interrelated and should be viewed by practitioners and scholars as interacting to produce contracting outcomes” (p. 329). One setting where values and institutions can be analyzed is through comparison across nations. Serving as institutional, policy, management, and cultural laboratories, nations approach public procurement very differently.

By examining these longstanding differences in culture, values, and processes of public procurement, scholars can gain insights into the different ways that procurement is designed, managed, and implemented around the world, ultimately building an improved understanding of the different factors that affect the success or failure of privatization and contracting out. To help facilitate this kind of scholarship, this pre-conference workshop will interrogate differences in approaches to public procurement around the world with the ultimate goal of developing a broader research agenda for the comparative study of public procurement.

This half day workshop, planned for 20-25 participants, provides understanding of best practice in design, implementation, and reporting of experimental research in behavioral public administration, with the following goals:

1) To become part of a community that exchanges ideas about best practice in experimental design applied to public management research.
2) To improve the design of your experiments so that they more clearly and precisely operationalize theoretically relevant research questions.
3) To know how to pre-register an experimental design and analysis plan, including how to handle and report deviations from a pre-registration.
4) To understand how to report effectively the design, implementation, and data analysis from an experimental study.
5) Finally, in combination with the prior learning goals, to improve your chances that an experimental study will be accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

Three sessions, accompanied by suggested advance readings include:

Session 1: Designing an experiment. Design of randomized controlled trials and possibility of quasi-experimental designs. Drawing on the counterfactual framework of causal inference, we will discuss the importance of aiming for exogeneity of the treatment and how to do so (particularly but not only via random assignment), designing theoretically relevant treatments and how to measure outcomes.

Session 2: Pre-registering an experiment. Distinguishing confirmatory (hypothesis testing) and exploratory aspects of research, discussing the philosophy and practices of pre-registration and research transparency, including reporting how a study was conducted and the sharing of data protecting both study participants and junior authors who want to ensure their work is recognized.

Session 3: Publishing an experimental study. Strategies for analysis and presentation of the results of an experiment in ways that facilitate understanding and enhance its chances of publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
Session leaders have substantial experience in experimental research and will share practical insights they have gained .