ABSTRACT

Scholars of public administration are increasingly using experimental research to develop more robust causal inferences and greater methodological capacity. Against this backdrop, we examine the extent to which experimental research has taken hold in the Asia-Pacific region and assess regional capacity. Our review of 30 articles published by scholars based in the Asia-Pacific region in the public administration section of the Web of Science’s Journal Citation Reports finds that the regional capacity for experimental research is concentrated in a small number of institutions and strongly supplemented through international collaboration. Topics studied reflect the advent of behavioural public administration. Although progress is being made in reporting experimental designs, much work is needed in the region to bring greater transparency to scholarship. We conclude by encouraging scholars to more robustly implement and report experimental research and by outlining future directions.

摘要

公共行政学者越来越多地使用实验研究来开发更强大的因果推论和更大的方法论能力。在此背景下，我们考察了实验研究在亚太地区的影响程度，并评估了地区能力。我们回顾了 Web of Science 期刊引文报告公共管理部分亚太地区学者发表的 30 篇文章，发现该地区的实验研究能力集中在少数机构，并通过国际合作得到有力补充. 研究的主题反映了行为公共管理的出现。尽管在报告实验设计方面正在取得进展，该地区需要做大量工作以提高学术透明度。最后，我们鼓励学者们更强有力地实施和报告实验研究，并概述未来的方向。