Institutional Research Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

- by and +1
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- Data-driven Decision Making, Institutional Research, College Athletics
- by Lahoma Howard
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- Demography, Cohabitation, Institutional Research, Interpersonal Relationship

This study explores what effect a statewide financial aid policy has on the academic outcomes of college promise program recipients at two 4-year public research universities, Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) and Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI). Using secondary administrative data from the Indiana University's University Institutional Research and Reporting (UIRR) office, representing 7,842 low-income students who enrolled shortly before the policy was implemented, this study employs a quasi-experimental, difference-indifferences (DiD) framework to examine the heterogeneous treatment effects of a credit momentum policy that was supported by the Complete College America (CCA) 15 to Finish initiative on the academic progression and completion of Indiana Twenty-First Century Scholarship (TFCS) recipients at IUB and IUPUI, compared to non-TFCS Pell recipients from the Fall 2011 cohorts through the Fall 2014 cohorts. Results showed a modest significant effect on cumulative credits and grades but no effect on degree completion status (Year 4 Graduation Status, Year 6 Graduation Status) at IUB. The policy had no significant interaction effect on the TFCS recipients enrolled at IUPUI. The findings of this research suggest that credit momentum policy did not produce its intended effect, nor did it have any adverse consequences for low-income, first-generation students.

- by Roy Y. Chan
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- Higher Education, Economics of Education, Education Policy, Persistence/Retention

The increasing number of international teaching assistants (ITAs) in American undergraduate courses presents continued sociocultural, linguistic, and pedagogical challenges. Remaining underdeveloped, ITA training has attracted less attention in recent years. I urge a renewed enthusiasm for developing effective training curriculum. I review the focus of the ITA training curriculum over the past 30 years in terms of its content, implementation process, and context, and examine the missing elements that can make the training effective. I incorporate theories of multicultural education and postmodernism, and situate the discussion in the framework of professional development. As a conceptual analysis, this paper focuses on the why of integrating the missing elements, rather than the how of improving the curriculum in concrete steps.

Purpose – The role of women in Pakistani society – largely embedded in its patriarchal socio–cultural environment – has important implications for women’s entrepreneurial activity in the country. This study aims to investigate and analyse the influence of informal institutional factors on women’s entry into entrepreneurship in Pakistan, and determine how women exercise agency to cope with the constraints posed by such factors.
Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative approach is used to explore the normative context and lived experiences of women entrepreneurs in relation to the influence of socio–cultural beliefs and attitudes on their entrepreneurial career choices.
Findings – The findings suggest that women’s entrepreneurial career choices both revolve around and are shaped by a complex interplay of socio–cultural influences. Pakistani women entrepreneurs exercise their
agency as a means of negotiating gender roles within both household and society, using religious descriptions as a means to justify their entrepreneurial activity.
Research limitations/implications – While every effort has been made to ensure that the data were objectively interpreted, and the derived findings were robustly analysed, the research team acknowledges the many difficulties associated with adopting a social constructionist approach. As articulated by Fletcher(2011), the key issues of contextual objectivity (i.e. where the researcher judges what is important), reflexive turn (the need for the researcher to constantly reconnect with the subject) and potential multiplicity of contexts (the various contextual and potentially conflicting influences on the researcher) presents ongoing challenges for researchers in this field.
Originality/value – This study offers valuable insights into the impact of the informal (socio–cultural) institutional factors on women’s entrepreneurial activity, opening up new avenues for further research. The study also contributes to the women’s entrepreneurship literature from the perspective of an Islamic developing country.
Keywords Pakistan, Women’s entrepreneurship, Islam, Institutional theory, Institutional factors

- by Muhammad Azam Roomi and +1
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- Institutional Theory, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Islam, Institutional Research

The research article explores actors, institutions and political strategies in the German-Polish border region and examines forms of cross-border governance and institutionalization of functional cross-border cooperation on the basis of the TransOderana EGTC case study. For the analysis the theoretical models of multilevel governance and actor-centered institutionalism will be applied. The main objectives of the article are: 1. To give an overview about the territorial cooperation (actors, strategies, institutions), 2. To draw the inter- and intrainstitutional foundation process of an EGTC in practice and to reveal governance structures in the EU multilevel polity within this process and 3. To highlight and critically assess the opportunities and barriers of the EGTC foundation process.

- by Peter Ulrich
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- European Studies, Border Studies, Cross-border cooperation, Regionalism

Back cover text: Real Social Science presents a new, hands-on approach to social inquiry. The theoretical and methodological ideas behind the book, inspired by Aristotelian phronesis, represent an original perspective within the social sciences, and this volume gives readers for the first time a set of studies exemplifying what applied phronesis looks like in practice. The reflexive analysis of values and power gives new meaning to the impact of research on policy and practice. Real Social Science is a major step forward in a novel and thriving field of research. This book will benefit scholars, researchers, and students who want to make a difference in practice, not just in the academy. Its message will make it essential reading for students and academics across the social sciences.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg and +1
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- Screenwriting, Critical Theory, Critical Theory, Critical Theory

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior
- by Frank Meier
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

Credit momentum policies, or performance-based financial aid policies, have become increasingly popular among policymakers seeking to improve degree completion rates. This paper examines Indiana’s 30-credit-hour completion policy on first-time, full-time students who receive the Twenty-First Century Scholars (TFCS) Promise Program. Using administrative data from the Indiana University’s University Institutional Research and Reporting, representing 7842 low-income students who enrolled shortly before the policy was implemented, I use a difference-in-differences framework to explore the heterogeneous treatment effects of a credit (academic) momentum policy that was supported by the Complete College America 15 to Finish initiative on the academic progression and completion of promise scholarship recipients at Indiana University Bloomington and Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis, compared to non-TFCS Pell recipients from the Fall 2011 cohorts through the Fall 2014 cohorts. I find some evidence to suggest that credit momentum policies are associated with small increases in cumulative credits and grades but had no effect on degree completion status (Year 4 Graduation Status, Year 6 Graduation Status). I also find evidence that TFCS female and first-generation recipients responded positively to the policy change but find no evidence that the policy affects promise recipients differently by race/ethnicity. While consistent with prior work on credit momentum, these findings are among the first to explore the academic performance of college promise recipients. Together, these findings indicate that credit momentum policies may improve academic progression and completion for low-income, first-generation students who receive a promise scholarship. Implications for policy and research are discussed.

- by Roy Y. Chan
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- Higher Education, Education Policy, Assessment in Higher Education, Financial Aid

When it comes to getting accredited, the little foxes often spoil the vine, and quickly your school can become the Sleeping Snow White in this arena rather than the Prince Charming. In all of the overwhelming efforts that it takes to put together your school’s self-study and curriculum guides, this paper tries to identify seven critical “dwarves” can be the hard workers that make you the “hi-ho” success of your accreditation efforts.

- by Timothy M Stafford, PhD
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- Instructional Design, Assessment, Strategic Planning, Accreditation

Phronetic organizational research is an approach to the study of management and organizations focusing on ethics and power. It is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, usually as ‘prudence’. Phronesis is the ability to think and act in relation to values, to deliberate about ‘things that are good or bad for humans’ in the words of Aristotle (1976:1140a24–b12). Phronetic organizational research effectively provides answers to the following four value-rational questions, for specific problematics in management and organization studies: 1. Where are we going with this specific management problematic? 2. Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? 3. Is this development desirable? 4. What, if anything, should we do about it?

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Screenwriting, Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship

The Aalborg Project may be interpreted as a metaphor of modern politics, modern administration and planning, and of modernity itself. The basic idea of the project was comprehensive, coherent, and innovative, and it was based on rational and democratic argument. During implementation, however, when idea met reality, the play of Machiavellian princes, Nietzschean will to power, and Foucauldian rationality-as-rationalization resulted in the fragmentation of the project.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

At the same time that case studies are widely used and have produced canonical texts, it may be observed that the case study as a methodology is generally held in low regard, or is simply ignored, within the academy. For example, only 2 of the 30 top-ranked U.S. graduate programs in political science require a dedicated graduate course in case study or qualitative methods, and a full third of these programs do not even offer such a course. In contrast, all of the top 30 programs offer courses in quantitative methods and almost all of them require training in such methods, often several courses. In identifying this paradox of the case study’s wide use and low regard, Gerring rightly remarks that the case study survives in a “curious methodological limbo,” and that the reason is that the method is poorly understood. In what follows, we will try to resolve Gerring’s paradox and help case study research gain wider use and acceptance.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

Although the first private university in Uganda was founded in 1988 and the private university sector has since grown rapidly to become one of the most prominent features of higher education (HE) in Uganda, the contribution of private universities (PUs) to the provision of HE has remained largely unexplored and as such, less understood. The purpose of this paper, then, is to analyse the contribution of PUs to the provision of HE in Uganda, using theories of the non-profit organisations and Geiger's conceptual framework about rationales for growth of the PUs.
The paper is based on data that were collected through qualitative interviews conducted in 2008 with six faculty deans from Uganda Christian University (UCU); reviews of paper and web-based documents from the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) and the PUs in Uganda; and reviews of national and internal literature about private higher education (PHE). Data analysis reveals that excess demand for HE, per se, was not responsible for the growth of the PUs in Uganda; instead, it created opportunities for individuals and organisations to establish PUs. Because of their diverse backgrounds and the policy environment in which they exist, PUs undertake various roles in the provision of HE.

In this paper we argue that the use of the communicative theory of Jürgen Habermas in planning theory is problematic because it hampers an understanding of how power shapes planning. We posit an alternative approach based on the power analytics of Michel Foucault which focuses on ‘what is actually done’, as opposed to Habermas’s focus on ‘what should be done’. We discuss how the Foucauldian stance problematises planning, asking difficult questions about the treatment of legitimacy, rationality, knowledge and spatiality. We conclude that Foucault offers a type of analytic planning theory which offers better prospects than does Habermas for those interested in understanding and bringing about democratic social change through planning.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

Como sugiere el título, el núcleo central de este ensayo surge de la lectura del libro “Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions of Collective Action”, publicado en 1990. Pero el subtítulo exige una aclaración urgente: la mirada introductoria de la primera aproximación refiere a lo que se pretende desarrollar en estas páginas. Jamás podría aludir a los textos de Elinor Ostrom, en particular a los textos consultados. Al mismo tiempo, involucrar el problema de la naturaleza humana no implica que la autora, y mucho menos lo que aquí se desarrolle, agote la discusión sobre el tema. Se intenta mostrar que, en la discusión de mecanismos de acción colectiva, el investigador enfrenta aspectos complejos de la naturaleza humana. La mayoría de esos aspectos quedan al margen del tratamiento habitual del homo economicus propio de la literatura de la corriente principal del pensamiento económico. Aunque, debe notarse, sin producir una ruptura definitiva con el paradigma sino complementado con nuevos horizontes de investigación.
El objetivo general que aquí se persigue puede identificarse con el análisis de un libro particular. Para ello, se lo introduce en el contexto del programa de investigación al que corresponde, se muestra un mapa de la obra, se realizan comentarios siempre parciales de cada capítulo y se intenta resaltar el concepto que otorga consistencia al texto.
El texto se divide en cinco secciones. Comienza con una discusión sobre el institucionalismo para introducir el contexto del pensamiento de la autora. Luego, se critican las soluciones habituales propuestas para problemas de acción colectiva y tragedia de los bienes comunes. A continuación, en la tercera sección, se presentan las características salientes de los recursos de uso común y los supuestos sobre racionalidad que se desarrollan en la obra analizada. Sigue un conjunto de notas sobre el trabajo de campo realizado por Elinor Ostrom, los principios de diseño propuestos para instituciones duraderas de recursos de uso común y un análisis de las posibilidades de cambio institucional robusto. La sección cinco se reserva para un conjunto de reflexiones de cierre.

Higher education worldwide is facing unprecedented challenges — the dramatic rise of for-profit institutions, rapidly increasing expectations about what services colleges and universities should provide, and a complex society that demands college graduates with even more skills and capacities. To understand how higher education can effectively address these challenges, this paper investigates the public and private purpose of higher education and what it means for higher education’s future. Utilizing Critical Interpretive Synthesis (CIS) and signaling theory, this research reviews the changing meanings of ‘public’ and ‘private’ in higher education from the perspective of (1) education providers and (2) undergraduate students. A comprehensive search of the literature selected 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and twenty-five books published between 2000 and 2016. Nine synthetic constructs of the goals were found and while there was some agreement between institutions and students on the economic and social benefits of higher education, the review was characterized by a significant misalignment. The findings suggest that student expectations for a college degree tends to be very instrumental and personal, while higher education purpose of undergraduate education tend towards highly ideal life- and society changing consequences. This paper offers eight recommendations for policymakers to consider that address the growing misalignment gap between education providers and undergraduate students. The ultimate goal is to develop renovation or repurposing strategy across competing imperatives and to outline success measures to critically define, measure, and evaluate the achievement of specific goals and outcomes in hopes of resolving potential skills mismatch in a world of massive cataclysmic change.

Introduction describes the main aim of the volume as to present a novel approach to the study of social evolution. This approach is based on a look at, and analysis of social evolution through the evolution of social institutions associated with the rise and development of social complexity. Evolution is defined as the process of structural change. Within this framework, the society, or culture, is seen as a system composed of a great number of various social institutions that are interacting and changing. As a result, the whole structure of society is changing, that is evolving. Evolution does not have any particular direction, as any significant (that is, transforming the societal structure in any direction) change is evolutionary. Introduction gives an outline of the history of the notion of social institution and its conceptualization, and describes social institutions’ main characteristics and functions. It also summarizes the volume’s theoretical chapters and case studies.

This article presents the theoretical and methodological considerations behind a research method which the author calls ‘phronetic planning research’. Such research sets out to answer four questions of power and values for specific instances of planning: (1) Where are we going with planning? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What, if anything, should we do about it? A central task of phronetic planning research is to provide concrete examples and detailed narratives of the ways in which power and values work in planning and with what consequences to whom, and to suggest how relations of power and values could be changed to work with other consequences. Insofar as planning situations become clear, they are clarified by detailed stories of who is doing what to whom. Clarifications of that kind are a principal concern for phronetic planning research and provide the main link to praxis.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

Back cover text: If the new fin de siècle marks a recurrence of the real, Bent Flyvbjerg’s Rationality and Power epitomizes that development and sets new standards for social and political inquiry. The Danish town of Aalborg is to Flyvbjerg what Florence was to Machiavelli: a laboratory for understanding the real workings of power, and for grasping what they mean to our more general concerns of social and political organization. Politics, administration, and planning are examined in ways that allow a rare, in-depth understanding. The reader witnesses, firsthand, the classic and endless drama which defines what modernity and democracy are and can be.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior
- by Anna Maria Tammaro
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- Assessment, Strategic Planning, LIS Education, Accreditation

This article describes, on the one hand, key conduits between open fascists and the current US administration, and, on the other, the ties of major arts philanthropists to this administration. It reveals the common agendas of the patron class and a liberal world view that hopes to represent the middle class (or the petty bourgeoisie), and that purports (but fails) to serve the working classes. Historians of twentieth-century fascism have repeatedly shown how fascist takeover of state power was dependent on the complicity of groups and classes that were not otherwise fascist. In light of this and several works of contemporary anti-fascist analysis, it raises the spectre of neo-fascism as a real danger against which to measure present events. I argue that the liberal quest for a so-called civil debate, instead of community militancy, and which is prevalent in the artworld, misplaces the real site of struggle, which is the alliance of neo-fascism with capitalist interest.

- by Nizan Shaked
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- Museum Studies, Contemporary Art, Institutional Research, Art and Activism

Higher education institutions codify institutional decisions and publish governance instruments in part in response to government regulation and accountability requirements, and increasing corporatisation. This paper explores technology-based solutions to communicate governance instruments (principally institutional policy), and considers the relationship between policy and institutional research derived from business intelligence (BI) systems. Data is drawn from surveys and interviews with higher education managers and policy practitioners from the United States and Australasia (Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea). While the management and communication of higher education institutional policy from fundamentally different contexts varies in many respects, there is a remarkable level of consistency. These commonalities include approaches to institutional policy websites, online policy libraries and the use of information technology-based systems to operationalise finance, human resources and student life cycle policy, particularly between the United States, Australia and New Zealand. This paper explores institutional policy technologies and practices progressively professionalising this emerging field.

This article provides an answer to what has been called the biggest problem in theorizing and understanding planning: the ambivalence about power found among planning researchers, theorists, and students. The author narrates how he came to work with issues of power and gives an example of how the methodology he developed for power studies—phronetic planning research—may be employed in practice. Phronetic planning research follows the tradition of power studies running from Machiavelli and Nietzsche to Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. It focuses on four value-rational questions: (1) Where are we going with planning? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What should be done? These questions are exemplified for a specific instance of Scandinavian urban planning. The author finds that the questions, and their answers, make a difference to planning in practice. They make planning research matter.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

Quality measurement is essential in every form of research, including institutional research and assessment. This paper addresses the erroneous assumptions institutional researchers often make with regard to survey research and provides an alternative method to producing more valid and reliable measures. Rasch measurement models are discussed and a demonstration is provided, thus highlighting the utility of the Rasch models in higher education research and practice.

Opening an interaction is a crucial step in establishing and maintaining social relationships. In this paper we describe how participants in an institutional setting, a help desk counter for exchange students at an international university, literally move into interaction. This is accomplished through a range of publicly available and sequentially organised movements in space. These steps are highly systematic and are open to participants’ ongoing negotiation of the situation at hand. Secondly, the paper describes how participants in and through their bodily movements, the use of space and the manipulation of material objects ‘embody the institution’. The paper adds to the growing field of multimodal conversation analytic work on space, mobility and objects in interaction as resources for participants’ ongoing sense- making practices.© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

- by Spencer Hazel and +1
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- Sociology, Language and Social Interaction, Mobility/Mobilities, Conversation Analysis

Niccolò Machiavelli, the founder of modern political and administrative thought, made clear that an understanding of politics requires distinguishing between formal politics and what later, with Ludwig von Rochau, would become known as Realpolitik. No such distinction has been employed in the study of rationality. Yet I will argue that distinguishing between formal rationality and real rationality is as important for the understanding of rationality and planning as the distinction between formal politics and Realpolitik has been for understanding politics.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

The purpose of the present chapter is to demonstrate how social scientists may engage with mass media to have their research impact public deliberation, policy and practice. Communicating research to practice is part and parcel of applied phronesis and not something external to it. Even in Aristotle's original definition of phronesis, laid down more than two millennia ago, the knowledge–action relationship is clear. A defining characteristic of phronesis is, in Aristotle's words, that it is ‘reason capable of action’ (The Nicomachean Ethics, 1976: Bk VI, 1140a24–1140b12). Phronetic research results (‘reason’) are therefore results only to the extent they have an impact on practice (‘action’). In public affairs, reason is made capable of action by effectively having reason enter the public sphere and public deliberation. It is reason times exposure in the public sphere that matters, not reason alone. Today, mass media dominate the public sphere in liberal democracies. The relationship of research with media therefore needs to be reflected. However, to my knowledge no study exists that describes in detail this aspect of phronetic research. Even in social science as a whole, studies of how scholars work with mass media to secure public impact of their research seem rare (Bagdikian 2004; McCombs 2004; Bryant and Oliver 2009). This, then, is the purpose of the present chapter: to begin to close this gap in our knowledge of social science and phronesis. Because the field is underexplored, it was found to be prudent to start with a phenomenological case study. The study shows how a group of phronetic social scientists, including the author, engaged with media, including world-leading titles such as The New York Times, in order to place their research results on the public agenda and initiate change in their chosen field of interest: megaproject policy and management.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

This article reviews the literature on the institutional vision of higher education in the United States – that is, the philosophical template through which colleges and universities define and communicate the kinds of human beings they are attempting to cultivate. Key linguistic components found to constitute a well conceived, viable, and easily diffused institutional vision are identified and significant issues, controversies and problems associated with these guiding, governing, and self-promotional mission and vision statements are examined. Particular attention is given to those types of schools recognized in the literature as the most maligned in the academic community or misrepresented in the popular press. A comparative analysis revisits the data of a subset of these investigations with the intention of generating greater insight into the institutional vision of higher education and offering a prescription for how these statements can better serve their institutions.

The cartographer’s task is to trace the outlines of a specified region, to create a wider perspective unavailable from a single vantage point. The historian’s task is to bring context to the cartographer’s landscape, to situate it in a wider account of its evolution over time and its relationship to similar landscapes. This monograph can be understood as a work of historical cartography. It seeks to map the terrain of Christian higher education in the United States, and when possible, to contextualize this sector by offering historical trend data and peer group comparisons.

Taken together, the works of Jurgen Habermas and Michel Foucault highlight an essential tension in modernity. This is the tension between the normative and the real, between what should be done and what is actually done. Understanding this tension is crucial to understanding modern democracy, what it is and what it could be. It has been argued that an effective way of making democracy stronger is to strengthen civil society. This article contains a comparative analysis of the central ideas of Habermas and Foucault as they pertain to the question of democracy and civil society. More specifically, the discourse ethics of Habermas is contrasted with the power analytics and ethics of Foucault evaluating their usefulness for those interested in understanding, and bringing about, democratic social change.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

If we want to empower and re-enchant organization research, we need to do three things. First, we must drop all pretence, however indirect, at emulating the success of the natural sciences in producing cumulative and predictive theory, for their approach simply does not work in organization research or any of the social sciences (for the full argument, see Flyvbjerg 2001). Second, we must address problems that matter to groups in the local, national, and global communities in which we live, and we must do it in ways that matter; we must focus on issues of context, values, and power, as advocated by great social scientists from Aristotle and Machiavelli to Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu. Finally, we must effectively and dialogically communicate the results of our research to our fellow citizens and carefully listen to their feedback. If we do this – focus on specific values and interests in the context of particular power relations – we may successfully transform organization research into an activity performed in public for organizational publics, sometimes to clarify, sometimes to intervene, sometimes to generate new perspectives, and always to serve as eyes and ears in ongoing efforts to understand the present and to deliberate about the future. We may, in short, arrive at organization research that matters.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

For over fifty years, successive waves of critique have underscored that the apolitical character of much of Political Science research betrays the founding mission of the discipline to have science serve democracy. The Caucus for a New Political Science was originally based on such a critique, and the Perestroika movement in the discipline included a call for more problem-driven as opposed to theory- or method-driven work that would better connect Political Science research to ongoing political struggles. In recent years, movements for a public Sociology and public Anthropology as well as dissonant movements in Economics and related fields have added to the insistence that social science research was too often disconnected from the real world. Phronetic Social Science has emerged out of the ferment for change in the social sciences, starting with the much-debated book by Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter (Cambridge 2001). Flyvbjerg critiqued the social sciences for mimicking the natural sciences while proposing an alternative approach that focuses research on helping people address the problems they are facing in the context they are facing them. Today, Phronetic Social Science goes beyond the call for an alternative approach to social inquiry and its growing adherents are providing evidence that this alternative approach to doing research can enrich the social sciences by more effectively connecting research to efforts to address real world problems as people experience them. This essay provides a genealogy of efforts to connect Political Science to politics, a review of the major critiques of mainstream research, an explication of the rationale for more problem-driven, mixed methods research, a specification of the key principles of the phronetic approach, and examples of its application in the public realm. The essay concludes with implications for realizing a more political Political Science by way of taking a phronetic approach.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Screenwriting, Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship