Public Administration's Multiple Institutionalized Frameworks

Using a neo-institutional perspective, this article describes seven different, yet related, institutionalized frameworks that form the practice world of public administration. Created and maintained in the broader environment, they provide interpretive lenses that public servants experience during the workday. The frameworks include: (1) organizations/agencies; (2) bureaucratic and program routinization; (3) politics; (4) law; (5) professions; (6) management; and (7) markets. The analysis was drawn from over fifty informal conversations with practitioners in different settings and levels of government. The author concludes that effective public administrations require an institutional literacy that allows them to recognize and respond appropriately to diverse situations. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005