Cultural Differences in the Study of Public Administration

Abstract

There are two kinds of truth: extensional (objective) and intentional (subjective). Western culture has traditionally foregrounded extensional truth, while Chinese culture has focused on intentional truth. This paper focuses on intentional truth, which has not been given sufficient attention in the study of public administration. Action knowledge is more valuable than a science of administration, and we need to develop it. All learning takes place inside individuals, so all organizational learning is individual learning. Meanwhile, tacit knowledge must be made explicitly before it can be gainfully deployed. An organizations competitiveness depends on its tacit knowledge, not its explicit knowledge, and the same is true of public administration. This paper uses hermeneutical methods to analyze the meaning of administrative action in organizations from different cultural viewpoints. To deal with the global economic crisis, it is important to develop action knowledge to support theories of how financial crises develop and how they could be avoided, so as to reform the institutionalized paradigm of public administration and governance and to cooperate in dealing with the economic crisis.