Professional Planning and Development Seminar: Case Management Essay

This essay explores the concept of interdisciplinarity in case management and public administration, arguing for a "both/and" approach that complements individual disciplines rather than posing a threat to them. It examines the historical context, boundaries, and underlying assumptions of public administration, highlighting the role of knowledge integration across social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. The essay discusses the debate of whether public administration is a science, art, or craft and emphasizes the need for a comprehensive understanding through an interdisciplinary approach. It differentiates between critical and instrumental interdisciplinarity, particularly in the context of complex issues like healthcare and the environment. The essay emphasizes the importance of integrating knowledge from various disciplines to address intellectual questions and solve problems within case management, highlighting the instrumentalist approach. The essay also underscores the necessity of raising political and epistemological questions to foster a better understanding and propose transformative policies. It concludes by defining “integration” and its role in case management, emphasizing the blending of relevant information from multiple disciplines to produce an interdisciplinary understanding.

Running Head: CASE MANAGEMENT AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 1
Professional Planning and Development Seminar
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date of Submission

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Qn. 1.5 According to Interdisciplinary Research (Theory and Process), interdisciplinarity should
be viewed as complimentary to the disciplines rather than a threat to them. In your view, what is
the most compelling argument that can be made for a “both/and” rather than an “either/or”
position?
Introduction
Case Management as well as Public Administration always involves trying to come up with a
comprehensive and complete understanding of government functions and internal structures
regardless of its complexity or the way it interacts with the society. To provide further insight on
the same, the book mentioned gives an outline of interdisciplinarity with regards to the history,
boundaries, underlying assumptions, and growth of public administration and case management
(ResearchGate, 2017). The disciplinarity discussed in the selected chapter helps in the tracking
of fields that emerge behind a conceptionally expanded background with regards to the growth
and state of public services. The same concept is deeply rooted in three knowledge branches.
These include social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. From the chapter, public
administration knowledge source can be mapped. An explanation can also be provided regarding
the manner in which the same is fragmented specializations of disciplines, the government,
social sciences, and the entire society. From the chapter, one is also able to determine the manner
in which authors are able to map disciplines as well as apply different theories (ResearchGate,
2017).
Interdisciplinarity and Public Administration
The identified chapter helps in the understanding of the role played by knowledge integration. It
is from the same section that a heated debate regarding public administration being treated as a
science, an art, or a craft gets initiated (Repko & Szostak, 2017, p. 30). According to the
argument put forth in this section of the book, a comprehensive understanding needs to be

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developed while the interdisciplinary approach towards the same taken seriously. For critical
interdisciplinarians, dismantling and transforming whatever boundaries between political and
literary factors. They also relationally treat objects of culture as well as advocate having low
culture included. (Repko & Szostak, 2017, pp. 57–58).
The section is also vital because it outlays the distinctions that exist between critical and
instrumental interdisciplinarity with regards to public administration. Also, research activities on
complex and systemic situations like healthcare and environment always portray an approach
geared towards solving problems and also combining critiques of case management as outlined
in the section (Rouse, 2017). The definitions used in this particular book to refer to
interdisciplinary studies shows an approach that happens to be in consensus with the entire
public administration field. Though pragmatic, there is room to perform interrogations and also
critique disciplines and structure of economy, politics, and the social aspects which are all
disciplines in case management. Particularly, the “both/and” approach happens to be portrayed in
the interdisciplinarity definitions provided in the earlier sections of the book. However, the same
also means having questions answered, problems solved, and topics addressed. In such a way,
the instrumentalist approach is reflected (Limbach & Jong, 2014). Interdisciplinarity also creates
a better understanding of issues. Having such understanding communicated requires having
political and epistemological questions raised. It also means having transformative policies
proposed. Interdisciplinarity has ideas developed into claims that are complex.
Interdisciplinarity for Describing Case Management
In this case, “integration” has been highlighted and of which means mixing of something to form
a unit that unified. Knowledge integration, hereby, means selecting particular information then

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blending the same with information from disciplines that are relevant so as to have an
interdisciplinary understanding produced regarding intellectual questions or particular problems.
The understanding, in this case happens to be limited to the context of case management. The
same would, therefore, solely depend on the case management disciplinary approach.

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Reference
Limbach, R., & Jong, T. (2014). Designing discovery learning environments: process analysis
and implications for designing an information system. International Journal of Learning
Technology, 1(2), 147.
Repko, A.F. & Szostak,R. (2017). Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory (3rded.).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
ResearchGate. (2017). Public Administration: The Interdisciplinary Study of Government.
Retrieved 17 June 2017, from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285984218_Public_Administration_The_Interd
isciplinary_Study_of_Government
Rouse, M. (2017). What is outsourcing? - Definition from WhatIs.com. SearchCIO. Retrieved 13
September 2017, from: http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/outsourcing

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