Developing Research-Backed Models in Public Administration and Management Doctoral Research: A Design Science Approach to Enhancing Utility Value

Although higher education institutions (HEIs) in Uganda are supposed to be the heartbeat of national transformation by serving as nursery beds for innovations, testbeds for policies, hubs for technology development and training grounds for both prospective public servants and in-service civil servants, they are challenged for being unresponsive. For instance, most of the doctoral research has generated theoretical or research-based models which cannot address the several institutional and community challenges and problems. Public Administration and Management (PAM) doctoral outputs may not be an exception. Thus, the purpose of the study was to establish whether PAM doctoral research at Uganda Management Institute (UMI) has developed research-backed models for utility value. To fill this knowledge void, desk research was conducted at Makerere University and UMI main libraries, aiming to establish whether PAM doctoral studies have generated such models. The study results showed that none of the archived theses had developed a research-backed model. This caused a shortage of tangible solutions to address the persistent challenges undermining public service delivery and local economic development programmes. We concluded that this situation warrants quick attention, especially in the era of indigenous public governance frameworks. The study recommended the need for PAM to offer HEIs to produce viable homegrown frameworks, models, and methods by including Design Science Research in the doctoral curriculum.