ABSTRACT
This chapter builds the foundation for the book’s examination of the curious public administrator. This foundation is built by discussing the importance of curiosity, the lack of scholarship in public administration, and the need for an administrative theory of curiosity for the field. This chapter constructs a definition to discuss and analyze curiosity that will be used throughout this book. This chapter argues that curiosity needs to be the defining guide for decision-making in public administration. The concept gives public administrators a rubric to help the nation’s bureaucracies make empathic, caring, and effective decisions.
