Organizational Humanism and Postpositivism 131
Th omas Luckmann’s Th e Social Construction of Reality (1967). From Kuhn came
the generally shared conviction among PATnet members and postpositivists that
building an entirely New Public Administration paradigm was both possible and
necessary. From Berger and Luckmann came the belief that such a paradigm
would be built on the foundation of postpositivist sociology, particularly on the
logic of the social construction of reality. Much of the literature and theorizing
now found in Administrative Th eory and Praxis, the PATnet journal, refl ect this
theoretical perspective toward public administration. Th is perspective is rather
fully illustrated by the key propositions and paradigmatic claims in Michael M.
Harmon’s Action Th eory for Public Administration (1981):
- In public administration, regarded both as a branch of social science
and as a category of social practice, paradigms are appropriately con-
ceived as theories of values and knowledge whose purposes are to im-
prove administrative practice and integrate types of theory. - Beliefs about human nature are central to the development of theories
in public administration as well as all other branches of social science.
In order to provide the foundation for developing and integrating epis-
temology with descriptive and normative theory, these beliefs should be
ontologically grounded rather than selected for reasons of convenience. - Th e primary unit of analysis in social theory should be the face-to-face
situation (or encounter) between two people, which is preferred over
the individual and over more encompassing units of analysis, such as
the group, the nation-state, or the “system.” - People are by nature active rather than passive, and social rather than
atomistic. Th is means that people have a measure of autonomy in de-
termining their actions, which are at the same time bound up in a social
context. Th is social context is necessary not only for instrumental pur-
poses but also for the defi nition of people’s status as humans. - People’s “active-social” nature implies an epistemology (i.e., ground
rules for determining the validity of knowledge), which focuses on the
study of subjective meanings that people attach to their own actions
and the actions of others. - Description and explanation in social science should be primarily con-
cerned with action, a concept that directs attention to the everyday
meanings people give their actions. - Th e concept of action provides the basis for challenging the adequacy
of social science theory, whose fundamental orientation is toward the
observation and analysis of behavior. - Th e primary conceptual issues in the development of a theory of values
for public administration are the relation of substance to process and of
individual to collective values.