Can Administrative Capacity Address Wicked Problems? Evidence From the Frontlines of the American Opioid Crisis
Published date | 01 August 2020 |
Date | 01 August 2020 |
DOI | 10.1177/0095399719878727 |
Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399719878727
Administration & Society
2020, Vol. 52(7) 983 –1008
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0095399719878727
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Article
Can Administrative
Capacity Address
Wicked Problems?
Evidence From the
Frontlines of the
American Opioid Crisis
Austin M. McCrea1
Abstract
What is the link between administrative capacity and wicked problems?
Previous literature links capacity to standardized performance outputs,
but little is known on the link between capacity and highly complex policy
settings. This study examines health outcomes of the opioid crisis—a wicked
problem with interdependencies across different drugs with multiple legal
and illegal pathways for abuse and dependence. If capacity matters for
wicked problems, administrative action should decompose the larger wicked
problem into smaller, more achievable solutions. The findings suggest that
administrative capacity may allow public organizations to simultaneously
manage drug outcomes across the legal and illegal market.
Keywords
capacity, performance, health
Public management is increasingly concerned with the relationship between
capacity and performance (Andrews & Boyne, 2010; Andrews & Brewer,
1American University, Washington, DC, USA
Corresponding Author:
Austin M. McCrea, Department of Public Administration & Policy, American University, 4400
Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20016, USA.
Email: am3471a@student.american.edu
878727AASXXX10.1177/0095399719878727Administration & SocietyMcCrea
research-article2019
984 Administration & Society 52(7)
2013; Avellaneda, 2016; Wimpy, Jackson, & Meier, 2018). The financial and
human resources organizations and governments have at their disposal are
precious and invaluable to the goals and missions they wish to achieve.
Although early work in this field linked capacity to policy adoption (Andrews
& Boyne, 2010), further studies find that capacity leads to better performance
across such disparate contexts as African countries (Wimpy et al., 2018),
public school districts in Texas (Meier & O’Toole, 2009), Colombian munici-
palities (Avellaneda, 2016), and U.K. government agencies (Andrews &
Brewer, 2013; Andrews & Boyne, 2010). The literature points to ways in
which well-functioning bureaucracies’ matter for performance, yet questions
on the topic remain to be explored.
In this article, I explore the link between administrative capacity and
wicked problems. The capacity perspective on public service improvement
suggests that organizational capabilities and competencies help link resources
to problems (Andrews, Beynon, & McDermott, 2015). As these characteris-
tics give way to expertise and specialization, complex issues such as wicked
problems can be addressed more comprehensively. The underlying logic is
that if smaller and more easily achievable solutions are identified among the
larger wicked problem, organizations can compose a more effective imple-
mentation strategy (Head & Alford, 2015; Simon, 1965; Wimpy et al., 2018).
I explore the link between capacity and wicked problems through the lens of
the American opioid crisis. The crisis can be considered a wicked problem when
one considers the interconnectivity of drug use across the legal and illegal drug
market. Administrative action which nudges individuals away from legal con-
sumption must also address the spillover into other opioid substitutes such as
heroin or fentanyl. The likelihood to accomplish both is expected to be deter-
mined by how resources are utilized and deployed across these individual prob-
lems. Capacity-rich organizations are expected to perform this dual role of
addiction management by crafting specific strategies for both drug markets.
Based on regression models analyzing the impact of local health depart-
ment (LHD) capacity in all 88 Ohio counties, I find that general administra-
tive capacity is associated with a reduction in the number of prescription-opioid-,
heroin-, and fentanyl-related deaths. These findings suggest that administra-
tive capacity may be an effective mechanism in addressing wicked problems
given the ability for capacity to be leveraged simultaneously across intercon-
nected policy outcomes.
Overview of Administrative Capacity
Administrative capacity is a resource-based theory of performance manage-
ment (Andrews et al., 2015). Resources comprise the tangible (e.g., financial)
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