Critically Examining the Assumptions of Espoused Theory The Case of City Planning and Management

Abstract

This article critically examines several basic assumptions of prescriptive theory in the planning and management fields by use of empirical analysis. Key assumptions identified pertain to the relationship of values as premises for professional attitudes and behaviors, the congruency of end-of-life values and professional values espoused in the professional literature, and the coincidence of espoused professional values and preferred approaches to decision making. Based on attitudinal data obtained in a survey of U.S. city planners and city managers, the end-of-life values, professional values, and preferred decision approaches of these practitioners were assessed using factor analysis techniques relative to espoused planning and management theory. This analysis leads to the findings that practitioners hold a wide range of end-of-life values, many of which are both consonant with and in conflict with the professional images of the two fields; that the effect of an individual's end-of-life values on his or her professional values is negligible; and that professional values appear to have no relationship to practitioner attitudes toward espoused theories of decision making. Based on these findings, implications to planning and management theory are drawn in the areas of the composition of professional groups, existing prescriptive theory, and directions for the extension of empirically based research on planning and management theory.

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