Challenges to inform the curricula of Master of Public Administration programmes
| DOI | 10.1177/0144739419864130 |
| Author | Jacobus S Wessels |
| Published date | 01 July 2020 |
| Date | 01 July 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Teaching Public Administration
Challenges to inform the
2020, Vol. 38(2) 144–167
ª The Author(s) 2019
curricula of Master of
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DOI: 10.1177/0144739419864130
Public Administration
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programmes
Jacobus S Wessels
University of South Africa, South Africa
Abstract
The emerging complex challenges confronting public administration (PA) leaders are
used as reasons for rethinking the quality of PA education throughout the world.
However, it is not clear what PA scholars mean when they use the word ‘challenge’ when
rethinking the curricula of the Master of Public Administration (MPA) programmes
globally. The questions this study set to answer were: what are the defining charac-
teristics of the concept corresponding to those objects referred to as ‘challenges’ for
MPA graduates to meet, and what are their implications for MPA curriculum standards?
In an effort to answer these questions, a concept analysis of the concept ‘challenge’
within the context of PA and MPA curricula was done. For this purpose, three scholarly
journals, as well as three operational documents, were purposefully selected for quali-
tative content analysis. The concept analysis showed that ‘challenge’ within the context
of the MPA curriculum is characterised by being a PA task, its wickedness, and the
required capabilities for public sector managers to undertake that task. The study found
that due to the inherent wickedness of challenges, MPA curricula have to instil a capa-
bility in graduates for independent and autonomous thinking amidst a diversity of per-
spectives and settings.
Keywords
Challenges, wicked problems, MPA, Master of Public Administration, capability
approach, curriculum
Corresponding author:
Jacobus S Wessels, University of South Africa, PO Box 392, Unisa 0003, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa.
Email: wessejs@unisa.ac.za. Telephone: þ27 (0)12-429-6099
Wessels
145
Introduction
A few years ago, Rosenbaum (2014: 92) observed, ‘[n]ew and very complex challenges
have continued to emerge at a rapid rate. Both the public, as well as political leaders,
have expected government, and those who administer it, to meet those challenges.’ He
furthermore remarked that these challenges have given ‘rise to various efforts to rethink
and improve the quality of public administration education and training throughout the
world’ (Rosenbaum, 2014: 92). The direct relationship between the complex challenges
confronting public administration (PA) leaders and PA education has shown to be
generally recognised by PA scholars (Awortwi, 2011: 723; Cepiku, 2011: 379; Wool-
dridge, 2004: 385). Hence, the adaptation of a single set of competency standards by the
Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation (COPRA) as a basis for the accreditation
of Master of Public Administration (MPA) programmes globally (COPRA, 2014:
Standard 5.1). The implied assumption thus seems that MPA curricula meeting this set of
competency standards are preparing PA leaders throughout the world to meet these
emerging new and very complex challenges. Is this assumption correct?
While it is expected that diverse and complex challenges should inform the
rethinking, improving and even universal accreditation of PA education and training
programmes (Bhuiyan, 2012: 66; Bouckaert, 2013: 228; Kim, 2012: 142–143; Rosen-
baum, 2014: 92), it is noteworthy that the word ‘challenge’ is not used once in the
Accreditation Standards for Master’s Degree Programs (COPRA, 2014). It might be
assumed that understanding the meaning and implications of those emerging and very
complex PA challenges are covered by what Standard 5 refers to as a public service
perspective’ (COPRA, 2014: Standard 5.1). A public service perspective seemingly
refers to the social habitus of public sector managers (see Quinn, 2013: 11) enabling
them to integrate specific contextual (citizen and community) interests, and perhaps
challenges, with their technical and professional decisions (Haupt et al., 2017: 613–614).
However, the assumption of a universal public service perspective informed by those
challenges to which Rosenbaum refers may be misplaced. A study by Audette-
Chapdelaine, for example, highlights how difficult it is to obtain a common under-
standing of ‘challenge’ within the limited context of the local government of a specific
country (Audette-Chapdelaine, 2016). Moreover, recent studies have argued that the idea
of a universal public service perspective is fundamentally flawed (Stout, 2017). These
views are supported by Van Jaarsveldt et al. (2019), who argue that the differences in
challenges witnessed in the so-called decolonised countries compared to developed
countries might call for different curricula and standards. While the word ‘challenge’ is
not used in the accreditation standards referred to above, it is nevertheless commonly
used in the literature on PA education and curricula (Head and Alford, 2015; McQuiston
and Manoharan, 2017; Peters and Maatman, 2017; Van Jaarsveldt et al., 2019). Where
the word is used by scholars, it is not defined; it is not even included in the terminology
list of the International Standard Organisation (ISO) (2000). It is thus not clear what PA
scholars mean when they use the word ‘challenge’.
For the sake of clarity, it is necessary to make a distinction between the use of ‘word’,
‘concept’ and ‘term’ in this article. As a word accumulates its meaning from different
146
Teaching Public Administration 38(2)
contexts, a specific word may have different meanings (Pauw and Louw, 2014: 8). Just
the opposite is true of a concept, which has one meaning which can be expressed in
different words (Pauw and Louw, 2014: 8). Therefore, in defining a concept, the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) does not refer to a word, but a ‘unit
of knowledge created by a unique combination of characteristics’ (ISO, 2000: 3.2.1). A
term, in this article, is regarded as ‘one or more words with a fixed meaning in a specific,
usually technical, discourse’ or subject field (Pauw and Louw, 2014: 8). While the
meanings of terms are fixed even within different temporal and geographic contexts,
concepts within a discourse are ambiguous ‘whatever the context’ (Brons, 2005a: 33).
This article is about the concept ‘challenge’ which is sometimes expressed by the
word ‘challenge’ within the context of PA. ‘Challenge’, as an ordinary concept used in
both scholarly and non-scholarly language, may be understood by most of its uses as
referring to something similar to the legendary Gordian Knot (Morin, 1983: 12; Roller,
1984). For general, non-formal communication, this understanding may be sufficient.
However, Wittgenstein’s argument that many philosophical problems may be caused by
erroneous use of language (Brons, 2005b: 38) may also be true for the use of the concept
‘challenge’ within the more technical discourse on MPA curriculum development.
Consequently, the questions this study set to answer were the following: what are the
defining characteristics of the concept (ISO, 2000: 3.2.1, 3.2.3) corresponding to those
objects (‘anything perceivable or conceivable’; ISO, 2000: 3.1.1) referred to by
Rosenbaum (2014: 92) as ‘challenges’ for MPA graduates to meet, and what are their
implications for MPA curriculum standards? In an attempt to answer these two ques-
tions, the current study embarked on a concept analysis of ‘challenge’ within the context
of PA education to identify those attributes and to develop a conceptual framework for
understanding the relationship between a ‘challenge’ and those capabilities necessary to
meet it. This article concludes with a reflection on the implications of this framework for
the universal COPRA competency standards, as well as for the curricula of MPA pro-
grammes in diverse contexts. The methodological considerations for this analysis are
discussed in the next section.
Methodological considerations
The study of meaning within ordinary language is traditionally associated with the
hermeneutic problem within the field of philosophy (Brons, 2005a: 52; De Beer, 2014:
210–220). The seminal work of Wilson (1963) extended the study of meaning to include
the analysis of concepts. Subsequently, several variants of concept analysis as an applied
method have been developed and used in different scientific fields such as nursing and
medicine, the social, political and behavioural sciences, and the information sciences
(Brons, 2005a: 52). While the nursing sciences have probably produced the highest
percentage of research using methods of concept analysis (Brons, 2005a: 52; Colello and
Phoenix, 2013: 65), Walker and Avant’s (2014: 161–185) adaptation of Wilson’s method
of concept analysis is reportedly the most widely used (Brons, 2005a: 57; Colello and
Phoenix, 2013: 66). Their method is a process consisting of the following eight steps
(Walker and Avant, 2014: 166):
Wessels
147
1.
Select a concept.
2.
Determine the aims or purposes of analysis.
3.
Identify all uses of the concept that you can discover.
4.
Determine the defining attributes.
5.
Identify a model case.
6.
Identify borderline, related, contrary, invented and illegitimate cases.
7.
Identify antecedents and consequences.
8.
Define empirical referents.
Even though this method of concept analysis has been criticised for its alleged realist
or positivistic philosophical underpinnings and for being reductionists and static (Colello
and Phoenix, 2013: 66; Sambrook, 2009: 62; Walker and Avant, 2014: 179), this method
...
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