Organization Theories & Public Administration

This book is a compilation of critical annotated bibliographies of important and timely articles in public administration and organization theory. The bibliographies are divided into different themes and categories. Under each theme, there are between 10 and 20 annotated bibliographies (over 500 in total), with a thematic summary at the end. The contributors teach at universities in both the United States and abroad in departments ranging from public administration to education to English.

Graduate students, especially doctoral students in public administration, have long wanted a book that offers critical summaries of important articles across the discipline to help them with comprehensive exams. The book will also be useful for teachers and professors as a reference work that provides reliable summaries of the key points in the most influential articles from top journals in the field.

The book is about organizational theory and praxis in public administration and explores what leading scholars have reported about various aspects of organizations and organizational theories. It not only helps understand the key to organizational success but also explores leadership topics and the various roles and responsibilities of individuals in an organization.

The themes into which the annotated bibliography is divided are as follows: Expectancy theory; Motivation, pay, incentives, and retention; Job satisfaction and quality of work life; Burnout, emotional exhaustion, and stress; Realistic job previews and retention; Emotional intelligence, emotional labor, and showing emotion at work; Groupthink; Equifinality; Organizational change; Organizational traps; Organizational diagnosis; and Organizational learning.

The articles summarized in the book help the reader understand organizations, managers, organizational and managerial behaviors, and all the other aspects that come into play in the context of organizations and public administration. The book, theoretically and empirically, helps readers understand problems and thus find solutions in organizations and public administration.

The book reviews the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological discussions in the articles and presents them in the format of an annotated bibliography under different themes. The articles critically discussed and summarized under each theme will give students, scholars, researchers, bureaucrats, and teachers a better grasp of the ideas, concepts, theories, and methods needed to understand organization and leadership. The book will be useful for anyone who is conducting research in public administration with a focus on organizations and organizational theory and praxis.

This volume fills an important gap by collecting major research articles in public administration and organizational theory and presents them in the format of a critical annotated bibliography. The book is timely and contextual, and the articles are discussed under different themes. The lucidly written bibliographies summarize articles of 6,000 words or more in between 200 and 500 words. Each chapter begins by presenting the relevance of its theme in the public administration context before the annotated bibliography and a thematic conclusion.

This book is ideal for bureaucrats or managers in organizations and government agencies and for students or scholars in public administration and organizational science. It surveys the most important theories and practices in the field and outlines the crucial points of research articles published in leading journals.