Good trouble in the academy: inventing design-focused case studies about public management as an archetype of policy design research

Speaking archetypically, public organizations are practical means for implementing policy interventions. In this regard, their purposeful roles include furnishing operational capacity, while also sustaining support and legitimacy for the interventions as implemented. Contributions to fulfilling these roles are made by myriad practices and systems that are situated organizationally. Organizationally situated practices and systems are matters of concern for professional practitioners concerned with public organizations and their management. As they engage in creating and adapting such working phenomena, design-oriented professional practitioners bring professional knowledge into play. From this standpoint, there's a need for professional practitioners to acquire such professional knowledge, which implies a need for researchers to furnish it. At present, there's no good off the shelf solution for meeting that particular need. This chapter deals with the question of what to do about that gap. Dealing with it makes for good trouble