This dissertation examines the research methods that were used by doctoral students in Public Administration from the period 2000 to 2005. In order to identify the research methods used, it first looked at the purpose of doctoral research in Public Administration. It further identified ten research methods that can be used by doctoral students in Public Administration. When presenting the findings on the purposes of research it was found that 50% of the theses were descriptive and 30% were aimed at developing or improving administrative technology. Three categories were mainly used as units of analyses, namely interventions, organisations and institutions and social actions and events. The units of observations included individuals, official documents and scholarly literature. Of the ten research methods, only four were mostly used; Quantitative1, Hermeneutics, Qualitative1 and Qualitative2. This dissertation also identified that a significant association either exists or do not exist between the chosen variables. / Public Administration / M.A. (Public Administration)

This dissertation examines the research methods that were used by doctoral students in Public Administration from the period 2000 to 2005. In order to identify the research methods used, it first looked at the purpose of doctoral research in Public Administration. It further identified ten research methods that can be used by doctoral students in Public Administration. When presenting the findings on the purposes of research it was found that 50% of the theses were descriptive and 30% were aimed at developing or improving administrative technology. Three categories were mainly used as units of analyses, namely interventions, organisations and institutions and social actions and events. The units of observations included individuals, official documents and scholarly literature. Of the ten research methods, only four were mostly used; Quantitative1, Hermeneutics, Qualitative1 and Qualitative2. This dissertation also identified that a significant association either exists or do not exist between the chosen variables. / Public Administration and Management / M.A. (Public Administration)

The dissertation is about the significance for, and impact upon public administration of the correspondence theory of truth or veridicality, and its underlying epistemological assumptions. The underlying thesis is that, unduly influenced by the success of the natural sciences, and naive in accepting their claims to objectivity, many disciplines have sought to emulate them. There are two principle objections. Firstly, all other considerations aside, the supposedly objectivistic methodologies apparently applied to the explanation and prediction of the behavior of interactions of physical objects, may simply be inappropriate to certain other areas of inquiry; and more specifically objectivist methodologies are indeed inappropriate to understanding of human subjects, and their behavior, relations and interactions, and thus to public administration. The second objection is that it is of course logically impossible for any supposedly empirical discipline, as the natural sciences claim to be, to justify the belief in a supposedly objective realm of things-in-themselves existing outside, beyond, or independently of the changing, interrupted and different 'appearances' or experiences, to which an empirical science is qua empirical, necessarily restricted. Correspondence of any empirical observations or appearances (and the consequent or presupposed theoretical explanations) to an objective realm, upon which the claim to objectivity is based, is unverifiable. In light of the above it becomes evident that far from being objective, the natural sciences themselves, and the empirical observations upon which they are supposedly grounded, are subject to conceptual mediation and subjective interpretation; subjective and inter-subjective coherence replacing objective correspondence as the criterion of veridicality. Consequently it becomes clear that the presuppositions and prejudices of the observers enter, in the forms of concepts and preconceptions, into the very observations, and even more so into the theoretical constructions, or theories, of the natural, and indeed human and social sciences, and their claims to be authoritative and true. Subsequent discussion is then focused on both the coherence of individuals' experiences and understanding, and their inter-subjective coherence - which both rises from and constitutes, a "community". The role of language facilitates such coherence. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Public administration addresses issues that competing and aligning groups determine to be meaningful enough to address. However, there seems to be no shared universally objective ways of remedying anything. Everything is up for argument. Additionally, attempting to solve one set of problems often creates other connected problems and/or unintended consequences. So, public work ever [sic] never ends. This dissertation's purpose was to contribute a new theoretical understanding of the experience and practice of public administration. Its research addressed if and how a grounded existential theoretical framework could emerge that would help practitioners and scholars understand and describe public administrative efforts and experiences. Currently, there is no existential theory of public administration. This dissertation sought to initiate work in that direction. This dissertation employed a grounded theory methodology to collect information from Senior Executive Service (SES) members, to analyze the information for emerging concepts and theoretical relevance through constant comparison, and to discover/construct a theoretical framework for understanding public administrative efforts and experiences. "The grounded theory approach is a general methodology of analysis linked with data collection that uses a systematically applied set of methods to generate an inductive theory about a substantive area" (Glaser, 1992, p. 16). / This dissertation identified the emergence of three categories/themes that organized what the SES members were saying, doing, and perceiving. These categories include "the environment," "the work," and "the individual." The core category/theme, "the Sisyphusian predicament," theoretically unifies these categories/themes through a metaphorical application of existential concepts. It describes the issues administrators experience (never-endingness, boundedness, and finitude in the face of infinitude (managing the scope and scale of one's intentions; generating and authoring relevance, significance, and meaning; and the choice for metaphysical revolt/ microemancipation). There are scholarly and practicable applications of this framework. This dissertation contributes exploratory work towards developing a new theoretical alternative within public administration. It provides an alternative approach for viewing and understanding organizational processes within public organizations. Additionally, an existential approach facilitates a plurality of competing schools of thought wherein administrators can select approaches to decision making and acting on the basis of context and utility. / by T. Lucas Hollar. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

M.A. (Politics) / Public administration enables public institution officials to do their work, for instance educators to teach. The activity of public administration comprises six generic processes which are functions because they all have a specific purpose aimed at particular outputs. Secondary schools would not function without policy-making, organising, financing, determination of work procedures, control and staffing processes which are imperative to expedite functional activities. This studyis primarily based on the staffing process and staff development in particular. One of the mostserious and disturbing educational problems confronting educationists, policy-makers, learners, parents and the community is the restoration of the culture of teaching and learning. This studywill identify contributing factors towards the low performance morale of educators as a result of which mosteducators feel less motivated and committed to their tasks. Someeducators feel that they are not involved in all matters that affect their field of work, e.g. the budget. Staff development will ensure that educators' confidence is enhanced for the delivery of qualityeducation. The studywill indicate the role of the Department of Education, the principal and the governing bodiesin staff development and training activities. Intensive in-service training and retraining of educators is regarded as being essential for the successful implementation of the new education system of outcome-based education (OBE). The purpose of this studyis to cover such staff development aspects as the motivation of educators who lack commitment, the induction and orientation of newly appointed educators, building of a team spirit as stressed by OBE, delegation of authority for empowerment and the training and development for sustained performance...

Being a lecturer and serving in the Higher Degrees Committee of the Department of Public Administration and Management at Unisa for several years, gave me exposure to master’s and doctoral candidates’ scholarly work. I realised that the doctoral candidates, in particular, were facing methodological challenges. This realisation triggered my curiosity in the methodological preparedness of doctoral candidates. My scholarly curiosity prompted me to undertake a preliminary literature review which has identified a number of scholarly contributions on the quality of research in Public Administration. These studies have not established or attempted to establish conceptual frameworks for understanding this phenomenon. I deduced that the lack of scholarly contributions on the methodological preparedness of doctoral candidates indicates a knowledge gap that compromises scholarly understanding of methodological preparedness, both as a concept and a phenomenon. The main purpose of this research was to generate theory, by means of the development of a conceptual framework, in response to the identified knowledge gap in the literature. Consequently, a qualitative theory generating research design was chosen and actualised in three interrelated research phases. Phase 1 provides a theoretical perspective by turning to the scholarly literature and institutional documents to obtain a deepened understanding of the concept methodological preparedness relevant to Public Administration doctoral candidates. This phase serves, firstly, to provide an overview of the characteristics of the doctorate in Public Administration as an immediate context for methodological preparedness, and secondly, to do a concept analysis to identify and describe the meaning of the concept methodological preparedness with reference to a doctoral candidate. Phase 2 aimed to make sense of the methodological preparedness of Public Administration doctoral candidates at Unisa by exploring, through an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), how doctoral candidates and supervisors make sense of this phenomenon. This study makes a methodological contribution by employing the IPA for the first time in the South African Public Administration fraternity. Phase 3 generates a conceptual framework for understanding the methodological preparedness of Public Administration doctoral candidates at Unisa. The framework contributes to the understanding of the under- vi researched concept and phenomenon methodological preparedness of doctoral candidates in Public Administration. This study has shown that a candidate’s methodological preparedness (the state of being competent to independently make a methodological decision relevant to his or her doctoral research project), is not a once-off gate-keeping phenomenon, but an ongoing and fluent state of being. / Public Administration / D. Litt. et Phil. (Public Administration)