What Makes an Organization Public? Managers’ Perceptions in the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment System

• Published date: 01 May 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0275074019829610
• Author: Cullen C. Merritt
• Date: 01 May 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074019829610

American Review of Public Administration

2019, Vol. 49(4) 411 –424

© The Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/0275074019829610

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Article

Introduction

The concept of publicness, which underscores an organiza-

tion’s “public” attributes, has become a disciplinary para-

digm (Riccucci, 2010) among public administration scholars

who share an intellectual curiosity about the public charac-

teristics of government, business, and nonprofit organiza-

tions (Moulton, 2010). This curiosity has motivated scholars

to carefully conceptualize, measure, and enhance the ana-

lytic utility of data related to publicness (Bozeman, 1987;

Bozeman & Bretschneider, 1994; Rainey, Backoff, & Levine,

1976). Yet despite a now-established body of scholarship

demonstrating the implications of publicness for manage-

ment strategy (Boyne & Walker, 2010; Bozeman & Moulton,

2011; Bryson, Crosby, & Bloomberg, 2014), the field’s con-

ceptual understanding of publicness lacks a managerial per-

spective. Researchers may be unable to adequately analyze

the concept of organizational publicness and its implications

for management strategy without considering how managers

themselves view their organizations’ publicness. Accordingly,

this exploratory study aims to answer the following question:

What are the primary organizational and environmental fac-

tors managers associate with publicness?

Using grounded theory methodology, the present study is

among the first to collect perceptual data on organizational

publicness. In this study, we aim to identify conceptualiza-

tions of this complex phenomenon among senior managers

in the context of mental health and substance abuse treatment

facilities located in the Midwestern United States. We chose

senior-level managers operating in this setting as appropriate

respondents because they are hierarchically embedded to

interact with their organizations’ internal and external envi-

ronments—the contexts from which structural and institu-

tional mechanisms associated with publicness emanate

(Bozeman & Bretschneider, 1994; Rainey et al., 1976).

Grounded theory is a systematic technique to probe com-

plex structures and processes at a real-world level (Glaser &

Strauss, 1967). It has informed management strategy on mul-

tiple issues at the heart of public administration, such as net-

works (Agranoff, 2007), accountability (Romzek, LeRoux,

& Blackmar, 2012), collaboration (Romzek, LeRoux,

Johnston, Kempf, & Piatak, 2013), and policy implementa-

tion structures (Sandfort, 2000). However, this approach to

theory building has been underutilized for generating insights

about publicness.

In this article, we first review the field’s existing

approaches to classifying organizations according to public-

ness and organizational actors’ perceptions of phenomena

829610ARPXXX10.1177/0275074019829610The American Review of Public AdministrationMerritt

research-article2019

1Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, IN, USA

Corresponding Author:

Cullen C. Merritt, Assistant Professor, School of Public and Environmental

Affairs, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, 801 W.

Michigan St., BS 4155, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA.

Email: merritt1@iupui.edu

What Makes an Organization Public?

Managers’ Perceptions in the Mental

Health and Substance Abuse Treatment System

Cullen C. Merritt1

Abstract

The question “What makes an organization public?” is a leading point of scholarly inquiry in the field of public administration.

This study supplements existing theory on publicness by further exploring the primary influences on an organization’s

publicness—influences identified by analyzing data from in-depth interviews with senior-level managers of mental health and

substance abuse treatment facilities. Results from a grounded theoretical analysis of these managers’ perceptions provide

support for a conceptual framework of organizational publicness in which political authority, horizontal engagement, and

public engagement are associated with higher levels of publicness. Better understanding of the prism through which senior

managers conceptualize publicness may enhance managerial awareness of the most salient structural and institutional

mechanisms that empower treatment facilities to effectively support individuals suffering from mental health disorders such

as substance abuse, emotional distress, and depression.

Keywords

public administration, public management, organization theory, publicness