The Public Organization Review: A Global Journal (POR) invites article proposals for a Special Issue Symposium on “Building Administrative and Governance Capacities Through the Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Eras: Lessons Learned, Opportunities Developed.” Proposals should address any of a variety of experiences with and lessons learned from governing and managing the pandemic around the world. Proposals may focus on government agencies and/or nonprofit organizations; single countries; compare among countries; and hopefully will offer different perspectives, strategies, approaches, and models of capacity building for the post-pandemic era of governance. Implications should be drawn for policy and administrative actions.

Proposals for scholarly papers on a wide range of sub-topics using quantitative and/or qualitative analysis approaches will be considered, including strong theoretical works, single-site case studies, and comparative case studies. Scholarly manuscripts must be grounded in theory/literature and empirical evidence, and use sound analytical methods. Findings should be generalizable. Single-site case studies will be subject to different, more practical, review criteria. Articles in the Special Issue will be published on-line first as they are accepted, and the print volume will be published in March or June 2023.

POR is a strong performing quarterly scholarly journal with ESCI & Q2 status, and soon will receive Q1 & ISI/SSCI status. POR provides a global forum for aca?demicians and practitioners in diverse areas of public administration and public policy, governance, organization theory and behavior, public management, nonprofit administration, budgeting and finance, economic and social development, strategic studies, globalization, crisis and emergency management, and more. POR publishes only highest quality manuscripts that stand: (a) the rigor of double anonymous reviews (b) a selective acceptance rate of about 15–20% out of over about 300 submissions per year, and (c) groundbreaking theoretical as well as practical ideas that advance knowledge. POR publishes 4 issues per year with Publication Online first, followed by print publication. POR is published by Springer.

Examples of Suitable Topics for the Special Issue: “What have we learned – or failed to learn about governance capacities?”

The following list of sub-topics is only to indicate the breadth of sub-topics that will be considered for inclusion. The list does not exclude other related sub-topics.

Leadership – political and policy: the relationship between politics and administrative expertise; leading or managing from big data, data analytics and artificial intelligence vs. politics; where/who/what do leaders learn from about possible policies and actions?

Effects of governance capacity on policy choices and implementation strategies.

The correlation between public confidence in government and willingness to engage in safer public health practices.

Managing implementation horizontally and vertically: inter-organizational, inter-sectoral, across levels of government.

Successes and failures of centralized or decentralized leadership, top-down vs. bottom-up: national, state/province, local.

From policy decisions to implementation on the ground: Leading and managing mobilizations systems.

Best practices: coordinating overall response systems; crisis management across agencies at all levels of government and the nonprofit sector.

Understanding why changes in governance policies and approaches during crises have been difficult.

Responding rapidly with minimal information and considerable mis-information; coping with wide-spread mis-information, especially via social media.

The unequal effects of a pandemic and of response strategies and policies on certain populations, especially vulnerable populations.

The effects of partisan politics on anticipatory and response strategies.

Economic, social and/or psychological impacts of pandemics on the public and on employees.

Impacts of pandemics and responses to pandemics on public budgets, health care and health care facilities, immigration policy, homeless policy, vulnerable populations, minorities and racial/ethnic populations, threats of violence and disorder.

The role of culture and/or religion in shaping response approaches and strategies.

Impacts of mandated home schooling and shelter-in-place on the economy, transportation systems, supply chains, water, waste-water, refuse.

Public information strategies during a pandemic: Maintaining public support by communicating honestly with the public without creating fears.

The role of National Response Framework and Emergency Support Functions.

The role of Continuity of Operations Plans and Strategies.

The imperative of anticipatory capacity building and collaboration building.

Implementation and management of fighting the Covid-19 Pandemic through restrictive-lockdown, mandated mask wearing, and social distancing, Or open free-floating policies, practices, and measures.

Implementing and managing employee benefits for front-line workers, such as hazard pay, sick leave.

What front-line responders are owed when the crisis passes and post-crisis budget cuts are inevitable.

Managing volunteer participation: Benefits and risks from using volunteers.

The editors encourage single-site case studies and comparative case studies with lessons learned about best and less effective practice models involving national and sub-national responses, especially in hard-hit countries and states/provinces.

Proposals and Manuscripts

Proposals should clearly and succinctly present: (1) a descriptive title; (2) a statement of purpose that includes a problem statement; (3) research questions; (4) a sound conceptualization with theoretical/literature grounding; (5) the ‘originality’ and significance of the paper; (6) a brief methodology statement that includes, for example, sources of data and tools and methods; and (7) the paper’s potential contributions to knowledge (generalizability). Proposals should not exceed our 2-page limit.

Completed manuscripts should not exceed 35 pages double spaced (or 8000 words), inclusive of all tables, figures, and charts. APA style with third person writing is required. Style guidelines are on the POR website.

Timetable to Publication

Interested scholars are invited to submit proposals of approximately 800 to 1000 words to the Guest Editor Professor Steven Ott by August 15, 2022. Proposing authors will receive a response with suggestions from the Guest Editors by September 15, 2022.

Manuscripts from accepted proposals are due to the Guest Editors by December 15, 2022.

Authors of manuscripts will receive reviews by January 15, 2023. Reviews will include:

(1) a recommendation to complete the manuscript likely with suggested revisions; (2) a recommendation to revise and resubmit with more substantive revisions; or (3) a decision that the manuscript will not be accepted – consider submitting it to a different journal. A review with a (1) or (2) recommendation does not guarantee acceptance of the final manuscript.

Final revised manuscripts must be submitted through the POR portal by February 15. Final manuscripts will be double-anonymous reviewed as they are received.

The Special Issue will be published in POR

Articles will be published online as they are accepted and in print, in June 2023.

Proposals and initial manuscripts should be submitted to Steven Ott, Guest Editor, at the e-mail address below.

Questions about the substance or process for proposals, manuscripts, or the Special Issue should be submitted to a Guest Editor.

Contact Persons:

Editor-In-Chief of Public Organization Review (POR): Professor Ali Farazmand, Florida Atlantic University. afarazma@fau.edu.

Special Issue Guest Editors:

Professor Frances Edwards, San Jose State University, kc6thm@yahoo.com.

Professor Steven Ott, University of Utah, jsott@cppa.utah.edu.

For authors.

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