2023 Review Symposium

Call for Papers

Public Administration Review (PAR) Symposium on

Reviews to Reimagine and Rejuvenate Theorizing

Although reviews of scholarly literature can play an important role in reimagining and rejuvenating scholarship and pedagogy, reviews can also serve to simply reinforce existing understanding, thereby blocking avenues of progress. From a metascience perspective, reviews should indeed provide a synthesis on a subject but should also be critical of how we as researchers “do” research to encourage continuous development of our scientific repertoire – both in terms of theory development and methodological rigor (Schooler 2014).  Breslin and Gatrell (2020) use the miner-prospector metaphor to distinguish creative and original review approaches from the standard systematic review. Increasingly, there have been calls over the last few years to reorient reviews to question taken-for-granted scholarly understanding, and use reviews to reimagine and rejuvenate extant understanding and break disciplinary boundaries (see Alvesson and Sandberg 2020; Breslin and Gatrell 2020; Pandey, Bearfield, and Hall 2022).

PAR’s pages have featured many creative and original review articles (e.g., Andersen et al. 2016; Bryson et al. 2006; Campbell et al. 2022; George et al. 2021, Pandey et al. 2022; Walker 2013) and the goal of this symposium is to add to this corpus of high-impact reviews. As a discipline, we need reviews to systematize existing knowledge in order to understand this knowledge better and create new ideas. To stand on the shoulders of giants does not necessarily prevent progress, but it takes some courage to go beyond summarizing what others have found and even more courage to suggest a fundamentally different organizing principle.

Public Administration Review invites manuscripts that survey scholarly literatures and promote new insights. Manuscripts will be subject to an editorial evaluation followed by PAR’s peer-review process. Manuscripts will be assessed according to the following criteria:

1. Review scope, goals, and execution – Of broad interest to public administration scholars and practitioners; clear articulation and execution of review goals
2. Review methodology – replicable and transparent review methodology
3. Review contribution – contribution to reimagining and rejuvenating extant understanding

Manuscripts should be submitted online at https://www.editorialmanager.com/par/, choosing “Symposium Article” as the article type at the time of submission.  In the comments to the editor, please note that the article is intended for the “PAR Review Symposium 2023.” Relevant dates for the symposium are as follows***:

1. January 15, 2023 to February 15, 2023 – Submission of manuscript to PAR online portal
2. April 2023 to May 2023 – First Decision made; authors invited to revise provided with reviews (contingent on review process)
3. June 2023 to July 2023 – Revised Manuscripts due
4. August 2023 – Final version of accepted manuscripts due
5. November/December 2023 – Publication of accepted manuscripts in a PAR print issue

***Please note that this is an ambitious timeline.  Prospective authors should plan to adhere to this timeline in order to ensure timely publication.

Please direct any inquiries or questions to skpandey@email.gwu.edu.

References

Andersen, Lotte Bøgh, Andreas Boesen, and Lene Holm Pedersen. 2016. Performance in public organizations: Clarifying the conceptual space. Public Administration Review 76 (6): 852-862.

Alvesson, Mats, and Jörgen Sandberg. 2020. The Problematizing Review: A Counterpoint to Elsbach and Van Knippenberg’s Argument for Integrative Reviews. Journal of Management Studies 57 (6): 1290–1304.

Breslin, Dermot, and Caroline Gatrell. 2020. Theorizing through literature reviews: The miner-prospector continuum. Organizational Research Methods DOI: 1094428120943288.

Bryson, John M., Barbara C. Crosby, and Melissa Middleton Stone. 2006. The Design and Implementation of Cross-Sector Collaborations: Propositions from the Literature. Public Administration Review 66 (s1): 44-55.

Campbell, Jesse W., Sanjay K. Pandey, and Lars Arnesen. The Ontology, Origin, and Impact of Divisive Public Sector Rules: A Meta‐Narrative Review of the Red Tape and Administrative Burden Literatures. Public Administration Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13527

George, Bert, Sanjay K. Pandey, Bram Steijn, Adelien Decramer, and Mieke Audenaert. 2021 Red Tape, organizational performance, and employee outcomes: Meta‐analysis, meta‐regression, and research agenda. Public Administration Review 81(4): 638-651.

Pandey, Sanjay K., Domonic Bearfield, and Jeremy L. Hall. 2022 A New Era and New Concepts in the Study of Race in Public Administration. Public Administration Review 82(2): 205-209.

Pandey, Sanjay K., Smith Amy, Pandey, Sheela, and Ojelabi Olanike. 2022. Reimagining Race and Gender in Public Administration and Public Policy:  Insights from an Interdisciplinary Systematic Review. Public Administration Review.

Schooler, Jonathan W. 2014. Metascience could rescue the ‘replication crisis’. Nature, 515(7525): 9.

Walker, Richard M. 2013. Strategic management and performance in public organizations: findings from the Miles and Snow framework. Public Administration Review, 73(5): 675-685.