Administrative Science As Socially Constructed Truth

Abstract

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that the body of knowledge that constitutes administrative science is a socially constructed product. It also argues that variety in the language of administrative science is unavoidable, since it reflects deep metatheoretical differences between researchers whose backgrounds, values, and philosophies diverge radically. The book represents administrative science as a fundamentally subjective enterprise. It offers two possible explanations for the fragmented state of the discipline. First, administrative science might simply be in a preparadigmatic stage of development. Second, administrative science may be a "multiple paradigms" discipline rather than a preparadigmatic discipline. The book favors a third explanation: disciplinary fragmentation results from the proliferation of what Perrow Charles calls "interest theories" — theories that reflect the kind of interests and problems those investigators have been trained and schooled in.