The nexus of public administration, public policy, and nonprofit studies: An empirical mapping of research topics and knowledge integration

• Published date: 01 May 2023
• Author: Megan LePere‐Schloop,Rebecca Nesbit
• Date: 01 May 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13587

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The nexus of public administration, public policy,

and nonprofit studies: An empirical mapping of research

topics and knowledge integration

Megan LePere-Schloop

1

| Rebecca Nesbit

2

1

Glenn College of Public Affairs, The Ohio State

University, Columbus, Ohio, USA

2

Department of Public Administration and

Policy, University of Georgia, Athens,

Georgia, USA

Correspondence

Megan LePere-Schloop, Glenn College of Public

Affairs, The Ohio State University, Columbus,

Ohio, USA.

Email: lepere-schloop.1@osu.edu

Abstract

The interdisciplinary fields of public administration (PA), public policy studies (PP),

and nonprofit studies (nonprofit) all contribute to our understa nding of public

affairs, but the nature and extent of their knowledge integration are empirically

unclear. The current study adapts Rafols and Meyer’s framework for understandin g

interdisciplinary research integration and applies bibliometric and qualitative

methods to analyze citation trends among PA, PP, and nonprofit jo urnal articles

published between 2009 and 2020. Our findings reveal that articles in PA and PP

journals cite nonprofit journals at a low (but consistent) rate, while those in non-

profit journals cite their PA and PP counterparts more frequently. Usin g qualitative

coding, we developed a taxonomy of 15 broad research categories at the nexus of

the fields: three of these (collaboration, networks, and partnerships; public service

provision; and financial management) were shown to integrate knowledge from

PA/PP and nonprofits, while several others indicated the potential to do so.

Evidence for Practice

•This article helps practitioners understand the practice and importance of knowl-

edge integration, particularly within the PA/PP–nonprofit spaces.

•While nonprofit, public administration, and public policy researchers and practi-

tioners grapple with similar challenges, they may view those challenges through

different lenses. Knowledge integration can help illuminate those differences

and clarify assumptions, which enhances the capacity for collaboration among

those with varying professional and educational backgrounds.

•By identifying areas of research marked by high/low knowledge integration, this

work notifies public and nonprofit managers that valuable perspectives on prac-

tice may be missing from the academic journals they are reading and guides

them toward other publications. For example, due to low knowledge integra-

tion, practitioners interested in issues of organization performance, accountabil-

ity, and transparency would benefit from reading both PA/PP and nonprofit

journals on these topics.

INTRODUCTION

Academic knowledge integration, which occurs when

theories, concepts, methods, and/or ideas from one

area of research are meaningfully combined with those

from another, leads to greater innovation that can then

be applied to solve complex problems (National

Academies, 2005). In this article, we draw on an analyti-

cal framework and methods from bibliometric research

to examine knowledge integration at the nexus of

public administration (PA), public policy (PP), and non-

profit studies

1

(nonprofit), all of which contribute to our

Received: 8 November 2021 Revised: 31 October 2022 Accepted: 18 November 2022

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13587

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribu tion and reproduction in any medium, provided the

original work is properly cited.

© 2022 The Authors. Public Administration Review published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Public Administration.

486 Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:486–502.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar

understanding of public affairs. Scholars have deployed

bibliometric techniques to analyze collections of publi-

cation records and article corpora in order to codify

academic knowledge production and assess the state

of research in a field (Kevin et al., 2009), highlight pat-

terns in knowledge production (Wolfram, 2003), and

meas ure knowledge integration across bodies of research

(Porter & Rafols, 2009;Rafols&Meyer,2010).

Bibliometric research leverages key insights about com-

plex systems, such as knowledge production, to study

other phenomena, like knowledge integration. Herbert

Simon (1962) identified two properties of complex

systems—hierarchy and near decomposability—that are

foundational to bibliometric research. Academic knowl-

edge production features both properties: it is structured

into scientific disciplines comprised of related sub-fields

and/or topical areas (hierarchy), and it exhibits neardecom-

posability, meaning that interactions among sub-units

(e.g., researchsub-fields, topics) are weak but not negligible

(Simon, 1962). The principle of near decomposability sug-

gests that the hierarchical structure of knowledge produc-

tion will result in scholars within disciplines sharing more

theories, concepts, methods, and ideas than those across

them. Shared knowledge is often operationalized as cita-

tion links. To investigate knowledge integration across the

PA, PP, and nonprofit fields, therefore, we can analyze cita-

tion links between their respective bodies of research.

Conceptually, the fields of PA, PP, and nonprofit studies

intersect in significant ways, which should organically lead

to knowledge integration. In fact, scholars have long

debated the nature of their shared relationship, examining

whether nonprofit management is a sub-field of PA

(Pandey & Johnson, 2019) and studying specific connec-

tions, such as nonprofit-government relationships (Smith &

Grønbjerg, 2006), cross-sector partnerships and collabora-

tions (Bryson et al., 2006), and governance (Ansell &

Gash, 2007). Other scholars have applied a macro-level lens

by considering blurring sectoral boundaries

(Bozeman, 1988;Bromley&Meyer,2017;Weisbrod,1977),

and still others have conceptualized the overlap between

nonprofitstudiesandPAorPP(Adamsetal.,2014;

Brooks, 2002; DeLeon et al., 2010;Goyal,2017;Mitchell&

Schmitz, 2019;Nafi’ah et al., 2021; Pandey & Johnson, 2019;

Weible & Carter, 2017). Still, the topical landscape at the

intersection of nonprofit studies and PA/PP

2

,andtheextent

of knowledge integration among them, remains conceptu-

ally unclear and empirically underexamined.

This work addresses two main goals. First, it looks to

describe the landscape of research at the intersection of

nonprofit studies and PA/PP and measure the extent of

knowledge in this space. To do so, we apply quantitative

bibliometric methods and qualitative coding to articles

(published 2009–2020) in the three core nonprofit jour-

nals and 42 PA and PP journals designated as “Public

Administration”by the Web of Science citation database

(n=20,310). Our analysis reveals that, although articles

published in nonprofit journals cite PA and PP journals at

a higher rate than the reverse, research at the PA/PP/non-

profit nexus has remained consistently strong, even as

the fields have grown over time. However, while research

on some topics of mutual interest shows knowledge inte-

gration, work on many other topics could go further to

merge contributions from all three fields.

Second, this article aims to advance empirical research

by providing a stronger conceptualization of the topical

landscape at the PA/PP–nonprofit boundary, which

should facilitate more intentional knowledge integration

in future research areas of mutual interest. Knowledge

integration across disciplines can be burdensome: it

requires time, translational knowledge, and extensive

networks (Bordons et al., 2004). Our study reduces the

burdens associated with knowledge integration by guid-

ing scholars toward areas ripe for deeper exchange and

innovation. Also, while the nature of the relationship

between PA/PP and nonprofit studies is not the focus of

this article, our findings on knowledge integration at

their boundary help clarify the contributions of each

field. Faculty in public administration, public policy, non-

profit management, and public affairs programs con-

sider these contributions when setting program research

goals,whichinturnshapedecisionsondoctoraladmis-

sions, hiring, and tenure. Finally, this work informs prac-

titioners (and those teaching them) which research areas

have high and low levels of knowledge integration.

ASSESSING KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION

Academic disciplines provide the social and intellectual

structure for the organization of scientific knowledge pro-

duction (Bordons et al., 2004). Unlike multidisciplinary

research, in which various fields contribute their own indi-

vidualized solutions to problems, true interdisciplinarity is

characterized by knowledge integration, or research that

merges knowledge from two or more bodies with the aim

of advancing fundamental understanding and that, in

turn, shapes and informs its contributors (National

Academies, 2005; Porter et al., 2006; Rafols & Meyer, 2010).

Knowledge integration advances science by comple-

menting and expanding existing paradigms, or disciplines

(Bordons et al., 2004) and facilitates innovation in research

by exposing scholars to new ways of thinking and practicing

(Bordons et al., 2004)—what Raadschelders and Lee (2011,

p. 21) call “lateral development.”As with other innovation

diffusion processes (Rogers, 2010), knowledge integration,

or interdisciplinarity, can significantly and consequentially

change the nature and character of research in a given disci-

pline, explain complex systems, and help scholars and prac-

titioners solve critical social and physical problems (National

Academies, 2005). This value means that understanding the

level of knowledge integration between two disciplines mat-

ters, by illuminating the degree of knowledge exchanges,

the mechanisms by which they occur, and opportunities for

further diffusion.

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW 487