Increasing the Usefulness of Academic Scholarship for Local Government Practitioners

Abstract

The connection between public administration scholarship and practice has been a challenge since the establishment of the profession of public administration. This raises several key issues such as whether practitioners have access to scholarly research, whether scholars are addressing topics that the practitioners are interested in, and the extent to which the practitioners can understand and apply material they have acquired from research articles. This article uses the results from a panel discussion with local government managers and information from leading public administration journals to explore the causes of the divide and offer options to help bridge the gap.