Aligning a Multi-Government Network With Situational Context

Metropolitan Governance as an Organizational Systems Problem

Dados Bibliográficos

ID11674036
AutoresHerman L Boschken (0000-0001-8757-2754, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, USA, autor correspondente)
Ano2016
Volume47
Fascículo2
Páginas189-208
Data de publicação2016-09-22
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe American Review of Public Administration (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0275-0740 • E-ISSN: 1552-3357
EditoraSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0275074016668402
OpenAlexW2522403336
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas9
Referências citadas63

The governance of major metropolitan areas is often associated with a “fragmented” and “uncoordinated” multi-government apparatus, frequently sculpted from years of particularistic ad hoc administrative reforms. This image of dysfunctional structure gains high salience when the metropolitan context is accentuated by complexity and fluidity, especially where intense paradoxical forces of economic development and ecological sustainability are present. The most visible “solutions” for such a state often come from bureaucrats seeking to “streamline” government according to norms of standardization and hierarchy. But, calls for reform may also come from scholars of polycentric government, who see the problem as a misalignment of administrative structure with the metropolitan context. This article adopts the latter, less-appreciated perspective that argues such dysfunctions in a metropolitan multi-government network are essentially problems of adaptive organizational design. Different than the bureaucratic model, treatises on new public management or group-behavior theory, it emphasizes the contextual nature of public administration by employing the holistic framework of “organizational systems.” It illustrates the logic by introducing a toolbox for multi-government design that speaks to the adaptive qualities of government networks in whole metropolitan areas. Its purpose is to reinvigorate this holistic approach in thinking about the way we look at multi-government networks in major metropolitan areas

Bureaucracy · Context (archaeology · Corporate governance · Economics · Geography · Government (linguistics · Local government · Management · Metropolitan area · Network governance · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Salience (neuroscience · Situational ethics · Sociology · E-Government and Public Services · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Psychology · Public Administration · Public Policy and Administration Research