Kenneth Orr
Biographic Data
| ID | 753094 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kenneth Orr |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kenneth |
| FAMILY NAME | Orr |
| SIGNATURE | ORR K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of St Andrews |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3024-3997 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 142 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1961 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Between win–win and the manufacturing of consent
Scholarship on collaborative governance emphasises the importance of creating win–win situations as a way of generating policy innovation and effective problem-solving. However, the dynamics of collaboration are often more complicated than discovering mutual gains. An analysis of cannabis legalisation in the San Francisco Bay Area finds that ‘getting to yes’ is often a subtle mixture of finding common ground and the manufacturing of consent. This…
Imagine there’s no heaven
This article critically analyses the management of public sector austerity. Focusing on the case of UK local government chief executives, we develop the concept of austerity imaginaries. We provide four examples of these based on extensive interviewing. Offered as a theoretical concept, austerity imaginaries involve shared understandings of the role and potential for local government during times of acute fiscal pressure. We contribute empirical …
Pragmatism, partnerships, and persuasion
Foundations are one of the oldest organizational forms globally; their number and resources, as well as their socio-political and economic importance, have steadily continued to grow. Yet, foundations’ attributes, activities, and actual achievements remain underexplored and poorly understood. This is particularly noticeable in the context of global policy and transnational administration, an area where foundations tend to be subliminal players, a…
Strategizing for grand challenges
This qualitative study provides empirical knowledge and develops theory about the role of strategic management in Malaysian local government. As the country addresses the grand challenge of economic growth amid enduring national aspirations of moving from developing to fully developed status, the analysis identifies six approaches to strategic management across nine Malaysian local authorities. Rather than presenting a linear story of progression…
What is business school research for? Academic and stakeholder perspectives, politics and relationality
Through an empirically grounded analysis of contested interpretations of impact held by business school academics and wider stakeholders, we provide a political and relational understanding of research impact whereby impacts are realized through situated, relational and ongoing interactions. Our qualitative study of three UK business and management schools, comprising interviews with around 70 researchers, academic leaders and stakeholders explor…
Relational Leadership, Storytelling, and Narratives
This article examines the storytelling and narrative practices of an elite group of public administrators in the United Kingdom: local government chief executives. The authors do so through the lens of relationality, exploring the collective dimensions of leadership. The focus on leadership and stories embraces the narrative turn in public administration scholarship. It responds to calls for research examining the distinctive settings of everyday…
Local government partnership working
In this article we explore the dilemmas experienced by boundary-spanning actors working at the intersection of local government and the private sector. We suggest that these dilemmas are entwined with the disruption, transformation and reproduction of local government traditions. We utilise structuration theory to understand how agency is both constrained and enabled by traditions and how such agency in turn affects traditions. In drawing on the …
Local Government Chief Executives' Everyday Hauntings
This paper develops a theory of organizational ghosts, a concept that describes the haunted and burdensome aspects of organizational life and in particular of leadership action. The concept of organizational ghosts is not offered as yet another metaphor, a lens through which to analyse particular organizations. Rather, I offer my discussion of ghosts as a theoretical concept that explains how inheritances of the past haunt the relations and strug…
Public Administration Scholarship and the Politics of Coproducing Academic–Practitioner Research
Developing greater cooperation between researchers and practitioners is a long‐standing concern in social science. Academics and practitioners working together to coproduce research offers a number of potential gains for public administration scholarship, but it also raises some dilemmas. The benefits include bringing local knowledge to bear on the field, making better informed policy, and putting research to better use. However, coproduction of …
Reflexivity in the co‐production of academic‐practitioner research
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to offer a reflexive account of the co‐production of a qualitative research project with the aim of illuminating the relationships between research participants. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws upon personal experience of designing and conducting a research project into management learning, run jointly between an academic and a senior practitioner. The methodological issues involved and the reflexi…
Traditions of Local Government
This article explores local government traditions in the UK. This task is an important one for scholars who wish to understand and appreciate the rich cultural complexity of local government organizations. In local government settings, traditions can be used in the study and evaluation of political and managerial practices. They provide lenses through which the routines, structures and processes of management and politics may be viewed. The delin…
Local government and structural crisis
This article examines ideas of local government crisis in the UK aiming to apply macrolevel political economy debates to this sector. Two observations underpin its rationale. The first concerns structuralism's neglect of local government and the disconnection from its lively history of crisis discourses. Crisis discourses are a key frame through which local government actors have come to understand their environment. The second is that the fast-g…
Interpreting Narratives of Local Government Change under the Conservatives and New Labour
The recent work of Bevir and Rhodes has added momentum to a debate about the role of ideas in political science. This article aims to contribute to the debate by critically analysing a range of (interacting) narratives of local government change under Conservative and New Labour governments. It has a particular, but not exclusive, focus on normative academic commentaries, as these do not represent simply description and interpretation, but a purp…
Three Versions of Stoker
This article offers an assessment of the writings of Professor Gerry Stoker of Manchester and examines the main themes and messages of his work as it has related to both academics and practitioners. It examines the controversial nature of Stoker's output which has provoked the charge of ’betraying’ local government, and suggests that reading Stoker's work is a more complex task than perhaps his fiercest critics would allow. It argues that there i…
If Mayors are the Answer then What was the Question
This short article explores the introduction of directly elected mayors in England and identifies that the case for mayors, as made within New Labour's agenda of 'modernisation', has proceeded on the basis of inconsistent arguments. The article suggests the failure of the reforms either to deliver empowered 'big hitters' or to transform levels of interest in local electoral politics. It explores the diminishment of the public discourse of mayoral…
The Modernisation of Local Decision Making
Improving the quality of public participation in council decision making continues to be a key goal of local government 'modernisation'. Different rationales for this have been advanced, including consumerist aims of service improvement, participation as an important value in itself, and participation as a survival strategy for local government. Based on surveys of, and interviews with, councillors and senior officers in Scottish local government…
The ‘Modernisation’ of Political Management Arrangements in Post Devolution Scottish Local Government
While devolution has brought central government geographically and politically closer to local government it has not shielded it from pressures to ‘modernise’ its political management arrangements. However, devolution has created a different political context to other parts of the UK and this has allowed Scottish local government to voice its views on ‘modernisation’ with perhaps greater weight than is the case elsewhere. Moreover, ‘modernisation…
Developing Local Government
John Fairley (1995) has located the debate on the roles and purpose of local government within broader discussions on the future of Scottish governance. Writing in Scott ish Affairs shortly before the dismantling of the two tier system of Scottish local government, he urged that this debate should not end with the installation of the new unitary authorities. Having spent much of their second year grappling with the immediate effects of a serious …
The Ramakrishna mission lights the lamp of knowledge
Factors affecting gay and bisexual men's decisions and intentions to seek HIV testing
OBJECTIVES. This paper describes the relationships of sociodemographic, attitudinal, and behavioral variables to (1) decision to be tested, (2) expressed intention to be tested, and (3) reasons for not being tested for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antibody. METHODS. A sample of 1295 men completed an anonymous questionnaire in gay-identified venues. Factor analysis was used to group reasons for not being tested and logistic and multiple …
Joint arrangements in Scotland
Focus on Queensland
Appetite for Education in Contemporary Asia
Education for This Life or for the Life to Come
Many who wrote of Indonesian education in the first decade or so of independence described its present and adumbrated its future almost entirely in terms of the supervision of the Ministries of Basic Educa tion and Culture and of Higher Education.Muslim schools in general tended to be given a somewhat apologetic side-reference as manifesta tions of a tradition which had lost its power for all but a few be nighted conservatives. This view is no lo…
An Investigation of the Darby and Hornsby Springs Sites, Alachua County, Florida
Public Administration Scholarship and the Politics of Coproducing Academic–Practitioner Research
Developing greater cooperation between researchers and practitioners is a long‐standing concern in social science. Academics and practitioners working together to coproduce research offers a number of potential gains for public administration scholarship, but it also raises some dilemmas. The benefits include bringing local knowledge to bear on the field, making better informed policy, and putting research to better use. However, coproduction of …
Relational Leadership, Storytelling, and Narratives
This article examines the storytelling and narrative practices of an elite group of public administrators in the United Kingdom: local government chief executives. The authors do so through the lens of relationality, exploring the collective dimensions of leadership. The focus on leadership and stories embraces the narrative turn in public administration scholarship. It responds to calls for research examining the distinctive settings of everyday…
Local Government Chief Executives' Everyday Hauntings
This paper develops a theory of organizational ghosts, a concept that describes the haunted and burdensome aspects of organizational life and in particular of leadership action. The concept of organizational ghosts is not offered as yet another metaphor, a lens through which to analyse particular organizations. Rather, I offer my discussion of ghosts as a theoretical concept that explains how inheritances of the past haunt the relations and strug…
Traditions of Local Government
This article explores local government traditions in the UK. This task is an important one for scholars who wish to understand and appreciate the rich cultural complexity of local government organizations. In local government settings, traditions can be used in the study and evaluation of political and managerial practices. They provide lenses through which the routines, structures and processes of management and politics may be viewed. The delin…
If Mayors are the Answer then What was the Question
This short article explores the introduction of directly elected mayors in England and identifies that the case for mayors, as made within New Labour's agenda of 'modernisation', has proceeded on the basis of inconsistent arguments. The article suggests the failure of the reforms either to deliver empowered 'big hitters' or to transform levels of interest in local electoral politics. It explores the diminishment of the public discourse of mayoral…
The Modernisation of Local Decision Making
Improving the quality of public participation in council decision making continues to be a key goal of local government 'modernisation'. Different rationales for this have been advanced, including consumerist aims of service improvement, participation as an important value in itself, and participation as a survival strategy for local government. Based on surveys of, and interviews with, councillors and senior officers in Scottish local government…
Local government and structural crisis
This article examines ideas of local government crisis in the UK aiming to apply macrolevel political economy debates to this sector. Two observations underpin its rationale. The first concerns structuralism's neglect of local government and the disconnection from its lively history of crisis discourses. Crisis discourses are a key frame through which local government actors have come to understand their environment. The second is that the fast-g…
Local government partnership working
In this article we explore the dilemmas experienced by boundary-spanning actors working at the intersection of local government and the private sector. We suggest that these dilemmas are entwined with the disruption, transformation and reproduction of local government traditions. We utilise structuration theory to understand how agency is both constrained and enabled by traditions and how such agency in turn affects traditions. In drawing on the …
Interpreting Narratives of Local Government Change under the Conservatives and New Labour
The recent work of Bevir and Rhodes has added momentum to a debate about the role of ideas in political science. This article aims to contribute to the debate by critically analysing a range of (interacting) narratives of local government change under Conservative and New Labour governments. It has a particular, but not exclusive, focus on normative academic commentaries, as these do not represent simply description and interpretation, but a purp…
Factors affecting gay and bisexual men's decisions and intentions to seek HIV testing
OBJECTIVES. This paper describes the relationships of sociodemographic, attitudinal, and behavioral variables to (1) decision to be tested, (2) expressed intention to be tested, and (3) reasons for not being tested for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antibody. METHODS. A sample of 1295 men completed an anonymous questionnaire in gay-identified venues. Factor analysis was used to group reasons for not being tested and logistic and multiple …
Appetite for Education in Contemporary Asia
Strategizing for grand challenges
This qualitative study provides empirical knowledge and develops theory about the role of strategic management in Malaysian local government. As the country addresses the grand challenge of economic growth amid enduring national aspirations of moving from developing to fully developed status, the analysis identifies six approaches to strategic management across nine Malaysian local authorities. Rather than presenting a linear story of progression…
Joint arrangements in Scotland
Pragmatism, partnerships, and persuasion
Foundations are one of the oldest organizational forms globally; their number and resources, as well as their socio-political and economic importance, have steadily continued to grow. Yet, foundations’ attributes, activities, and actual achievements remain underexplored and poorly understood. This is particularly noticeable in the context of global policy and transnational administration, an area where foundations tend to be subliminal players, a…
Three Versions of Stoker
This article offers an assessment of the writings of Professor Gerry Stoker of Manchester and examines the main themes and messages of his work as it has related to both academics and practitioners. It examines the controversial nature of Stoker's output which has provoked the charge of ’betraying’ local government, and suggests that reading Stoker's work is a more complex task than perhaps his fiercest critics would allow. It argues that there i…
The ‘Modernisation’ of Political Management Arrangements in Post Devolution Scottish Local Government
While devolution has brought central government geographically and politically closer to local government it has not shielded it from pressures to ‘modernise’ its political management arrangements. However, devolution has created a different political context to other parts of the UK and this has allowed Scottish local government to voice its views on ‘modernisation’ with perhaps greater weight than is the case elsewhere. Moreover, ‘modernisation…
Education for This Life or for the Life to Come
Many who wrote of Indonesian education in the first decade or so of independence described its present and adumbrated its future almost entirely in terms of the supervision of the Ministries of Basic Educa tion and Culture and of Higher Education.Muslim schools in general tended to be given a somewhat apologetic side-reference as manifesta tions of a tradition which had lost its power for all but a few be nighted conservatives. This view is no lo…
An Investigation of the Darby and Hornsby Springs Sites, Alachua County, Florida
An Investigation of the Darby and Hornsby Springs Sites, Alachua County, Florida
Education for This Life or for the Life to Come
Many who wrote of Indonesian education in the first decade or so of independence described its present and adumbrated its future almost entirely in terms of the supervision of the Ministries of Basic Educa tion and Culture and of Higher Education.Muslim schools in general tended to be given a somewhat apologetic side-reference as manifesta tions of a tradition which had lost its power for all but a few be nighted conservatives. This view is no lo…
Appetite for Education in Contemporary Asia
Focus on Queensland
The Ramakrishna mission lights the lamp of knowledge
Factors affecting gay and bisexual men's decisions and intentions to seek HIV testing
OBJECTIVES. This paper describes the relationships of sociodemographic, attitudinal, and behavioral variables to (1) decision to be tested, (2) expressed intention to be tested, and (3) reasons for not being tested for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antibody. METHODS. A sample of 1295 men completed an anonymous questionnaire in gay-identified venues. Factor analysis was used to group reasons for not being tested and logistic and multiple …
Joint arrangements in Scotland
Developing Local Government
John Fairley (1995) has located the debate on the roles and purpose of local government within broader discussions on the future of Scottish governance. Writing in Scott ish Affairs shortly before the dismantling of the two tier system of Scottish local government, he urged that this debate should not end with the installation of the new unitary authorities. Having spent much of their second year grappling with the immediate effects of a serious …
The ‘Modernisation’ of Political Management Arrangements in Post Devolution Scottish Local Government
While devolution has brought central government geographically and politically closer to local government it has not shielded it from pressures to ‘modernise’ its political management arrangements. However, devolution has created a different political context to other parts of the UK and this has allowed Scottish local government to voice its views on ‘modernisation’ with perhaps greater weight than is the case elsewhere. Moreover, ‘modernisation…
If Mayors are the Answer then What was the Question
This short article explores the introduction of directly elected mayors in England and identifies that the case for mayors, as made within New Labour's agenda of 'modernisation', has proceeded on the basis of inconsistent arguments. The article suggests the failure of the reforms either to deliver empowered 'big hitters' or to transform levels of interest in local electoral politics. It explores the diminishment of the public discourse of mayoral…
The Modernisation of Local Decision Making
Improving the quality of public participation in council decision making continues to be a key goal of local government 'modernisation'. Different rationales for this have been advanced, including consumerist aims of service improvement, participation as an important value in itself, and participation as a survival strategy for local government. Based on surveys of, and interviews with, councillors and senior officers in Scottish local government…
Interpreting Narratives of Local Government Change under the Conservatives and New Labour
The recent work of Bevir and Rhodes has added momentum to a debate about the role of ideas in political science. This article aims to contribute to the debate by critically analysing a range of (interacting) narratives of local government change under Conservative and New Labour governments. It has a particular, but not exclusive, focus on normative academic commentaries, as these do not represent simply description and interpretation, but a purp…
Three Versions of Stoker
This article offers an assessment of the writings of Professor Gerry Stoker of Manchester and examines the main themes and messages of his work as it has related to both academics and practitioners. It examines the controversial nature of Stoker's output which has provoked the charge of ’betraying’ local government, and suggests that reading Stoker's work is a more complex task than perhaps his fiercest critics would allow. It argues that there i…
Reflexivity in the co‐production of academic‐practitioner research
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to offer a reflexive account of the co‐production of a qualitative research project with the aim of illuminating the relationships between research participants. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws upon personal experience of designing and conducting a research project into management learning, run jointly between an academic and a senior practitioner. The methodological issues involved and the reflexi…
Traditions of Local Government
This article explores local government traditions in the UK. This task is an important one for scholars who wish to understand and appreciate the rich cultural complexity of local government organizations. In local government settings, traditions can be used in the study and evaluation of political and managerial practices. They provide lenses through which the routines, structures and processes of management and politics may be viewed. The delin…
Local government and structural crisis
This article examines ideas of local government crisis in the UK aiming to apply macrolevel political economy debates to this sector. Two observations underpin its rationale. The first concerns structuralism's neglect of local government and the disconnection from its lively history of crisis discourses. Crisis discourses are a key frame through which local government actors have come to understand their environment. The second is that the fast-g…
Public Administration Scholarship and the Politics of Coproducing Academic–Practitioner Research
Developing greater cooperation between researchers and practitioners is a long‐standing concern in social science. Academics and practitioners working together to coproduce research offers a number of potential gains for public administration scholarship, but it also raises some dilemmas. The benefits include bringing local knowledge to bear on the field, making better informed policy, and putting research to better use. However, coproduction of …
Local Government Chief Executives' Everyday Hauntings
This paper develops a theory of organizational ghosts, a concept that describes the haunted and burdensome aspects of organizational life and in particular of leadership action. The concept of organizational ghosts is not offered as yet another metaphor, a lens through which to analyse particular organizations. Rather, I offer my discussion of ghosts as a theoretical concept that explains how inheritances of the past haunt the relations and strug…
Relational Leadership, Storytelling, and Narratives
This article examines the storytelling and narrative practices of an elite group of public administrators in the United Kingdom: local government chief executives. The authors do so through the lens of relationality, exploring the collective dimensions of leadership. The focus on leadership and stories embraces the narrative turn in public administration scholarship. It responds to calls for research examining the distinctive settings of everyday…
Local government partnership working
In this article we explore the dilemmas experienced by boundary-spanning actors working at the intersection of local government and the private sector. We suggest that these dilemmas are entwined with the disruption, transformation and reproduction of local government traditions. We utilise structuration theory to understand how agency is both constrained and enabled by traditions and how such agency in turn affects traditions. In drawing on the …
What is business school research for? Academic and stakeholder perspectives, politics and relationality
Through an empirically grounded analysis of contested interpretations of impact held by business school academics and wider stakeholders, we provide a political and relational understanding of research impact whereby impacts are realized through situated, relational and ongoing interactions. Our qualitative study of three UK business and management schools, comprising interviews with around 70 researchers, academic leaders and stakeholders explor…
Imagine there’s no heaven
This article critically analyses the management of public sector austerity. Focusing on the case of UK local government chief executives, we develop the concept of austerity imaginaries. We provide four examples of these based on extensive interviewing. Offered as a theoretical concept, austerity imaginaries involve shared understandings of the role and potential for local government during times of acute fiscal pressure. We contribute empirical …
Pragmatism, partnerships, and persuasion
Foundations are one of the oldest organizational forms globally; their number and resources, as well as their socio-political and economic importance, have steadily continued to grow. Yet, foundations’ attributes, activities, and actual achievements remain underexplored and poorly understood. This is particularly noticeable in the context of global policy and transnational administration, an area where foundations tend to be subliminal players, a…
Strategizing for grand challenges
This qualitative study provides empirical knowledge and develops theory about the role of strategic management in Malaysian local government. As the country addresses the grand challenge of economic growth amid enduring national aspirations of moving from developing to fully developed status, the analysis identifies six approaches to strategic management across nine Malaysian local authorities. Rather than presenting a linear story of progression…
Between win–win and the manufacturing of consent
Scholarship on collaborative governance emphasises the importance of creating win–win situations as a way of generating policy innovation and effective problem-solving. However, the dynamics of collaboration are often more complicated than discovering mutual gains. An analysis of cannabis legalisation in the San Francisco Bay Area finds that ‘getting to yes’ is often a subtle mixture of finding common ground and the manufacturing of consent. This…
Political science (18 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Law (12 works) · Politics (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Public Administration (10 works) · Public Policy and Administration Research (10 works) · Government (linguistics (9 works) · Public Administration (8 works) · Public relations (8 works)