ABSTRACT
Most of the empirical work by public management researchers is based on qualitative methods. Academic effort has concentrated on case studies of, or commentaries on, government policies or management practices. By contrast, quantitative research has been rare. What are the reasons for the scarcity of quantitative studies, and for the lack of statistical tests of hypotheses concerning public management processes and outcomes? What is the potential contribution of quantitative methods to the development of this field, and what are the problems of realizing this potential? The aim of this chapter is to address these questions.
