Theory building within public administration has been slow and uneven, due in part to the field’s search for grand theories and its failure to systematize knowledge. Middle range theory may be a particularly useful theory-building strategy for public administration scholarship due to its emphasis on generating testable hypotheses, organizing knowledge about particular phenomena, and bridging gaps between empirical facts and theory. Its utility for the development of public human resource management theory is illustrated based on examples from performance-related pay and representative bureaucracy research. We present a series of theoretical statements about performance-related pay and representative bureaucracy, and we identify the extent to which these statements are supported by empirical evidence. The examples both illustrate the utility of the theory-building strategy and identify theoretical statements that are widely confirmed and others that need additional testing.

This study draws on the insights of managers in the behavioral health treatment system to explore the value of persons who bring lived experience to their organizational positions. Within these organizations, persons with relevant lived experience occupy various nonclinical and clinical positions. When facilities incorporate workers with lived experience, managers observe increased levels of trust between clients and service providers, an enhanced client-centered perspective among service providers, and higher quality in the services provided. This study may guide managers in considering how (or whether) human service organizations might institutionalize lived experience as a mechanism to help create a representative bureaucracy. PRACTICE POINTS• In the behavioral health treatment system, the use of peer-provided services demonstrates an organization's commitment to engaging with and learning from the experiences of former service recipients.• Employees who have experienced the challenges an organization addresses introduce distinct, relevant knowledge that cannot be replicated through education and training.• Active representation on the basis of lived experience is neither inherent nor automatic and is influenced by institutional and contextual factors.• In the behavioral health treatment system, organizations reduce challenges associated with integrating workers with lived experience by clearly defining roles and responsibilities, education and training, formal supervision and monitoring processes, and policies/rules that outline clear boundaries between persons with lived experience and clients.• If care is taken to develop roles and job descriptions that make thoughtful and appropriate use of workers with lived experience, organizations may improve their capacity to serve their clientele.

This article offers one of the first efforts at describing the impact of a national product donation program. Despite the importance of in‐kind giving to the corporate and charitable sectors, little research has explained how in‐kind gifts are used effectively once they leave the donor's hands. In this study we examine outcomes and impacts associated with a product donation program, including numbers served, a faith‐based mission, the ability to process product donations effectively, the extent of performance measurement, and the effect of program experience on continued participation. Data come from Good360's Framing Hope program, a partnership between The Home Depot stores and local charities across the United States. Our findings support the organizational capacity literature in suggesting that experience with this program only partly mitigates the challenges of participation and that success may be due to how central the program is to organizational objectives.

Competent leadership is essential to helping achieve agency missions. While governments around the globe invest in leadership development, most struggle to calculate the return on their investment (ROI). The lack of ROI evaluations makes it difficult to maintain leadership development budgets during financial crises and political changes. In this article we outline three methods for assessing ROI for leadership development.

Governments around the world, including the US federal government, are seeking ways to improve employee engagement, given that it has a positive impact on job performance and organizational performance. Unfortunately, scholars and practitioners have struggled to provide specific and actionable insights for fostering high employee engagement. We describe how data from the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government Index combined with Necessary Condition Analysis can be used to provide government leaders with practical advice for fostering high engagement and satisfaction in their agencies.