Please NOTE, 15 pages without cover and references pages

ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS

Where do you see administrative theory intersect with your daily life? Apply what you have learned in this class to your workplace, a current event, or a hypothetical situation. This paper will be a case study application of the theories you have learned toward a topic in which have an interest. You must focus your paper on the connection between theories and theorists we have studied in this class to the scenario you select.

After you have made your selection, please forward your topic to me for approval by Week 6. After the topic has been approved, you will prepare a written analysis, generally following the guidelines given below. Your analysis should be approximately 15 pages in length (double spaced exclusive of title page and reference list) and follow proper APA formatting. Fifteen to twenty pages may be larger than what you have been used to in the past. This paper is intended to help you along in your graduate studies by applying a theory or set of theories to a practical policy or organizational situation and building a review of literature to back up your analysis. It will be useful for you to review the theoretical framework resources available for you in the APUS library graduate resources site and the particularly Research Methods. The writing center is also an invaluable resource. It is located under resources on our APUS library site.

GUIDELINES:

A major component of this paper will be the review of literature based on the theorists we have studied. Each research paper will, of course, be different. However, the central issue in your analysis should be to describe what the case tells us about the theory and practice of public administration. There is no one best way to address this. Thus, as you think about the answer to this primary question, you will need to develop your own framework for answering it. Some general questions that you may want to consider including the following:

• What are the issues and why are they issues?
• Who are the actors?
• What leads the various actors to make the choices or take the positions that they do? What are the personal forces? What are the organizational forces? What are the external forces?
• What theoretical perspectives or models help you understand what happened in the case? How?

What does the case tell us concerning;

• The nature of the policy system and the policy making process?
• The decision making process?
• Leadership and management?
• Administrative ethics?

In analyzing the case, you should draw upon class readings, peer-reviewed journal articles, legitimate online resources (do not rely on Wikipedia, encyclopedias, dictionaries, or other non-academic sources) as well as personal experiences that may be relevant to your study.