Toward the Theory of Administrative Tethering: Re-thinking Child Welfare Training amid Rationally Bounded Administrative Decision-Making and Collaborative Governance Processes

Toward a Theory of Administrative Tethering is the culmination of a seven-year commitment to investigate and explore the highly complex and chaotic nature of collaboration, specifically in child protective services (CPS). This journey began with an atypical relationship between a doctoral student practicing in CPS and an academic mentor. Examination of the CPS system in North Carolina necessitated more in-depth study to foster change relevant to improve service delivery for front-line staff and to engage executive leadership at the local and state levels. All CPS actors must function in a highly coordinated fashion to provide the orderly delivery of this social product to the public as needed and as expected. Herbert Simon's work is stitched into each chapter, and his perspectives provide the binding agent to the emerging Administrative Tethering (AT) framework (2002, 2000, 1962). Administrative Tethering (AT) can be conceptualized as a strategic management design that employs a series of inter-agency bonding actions and techniques to address the multi-dimensional nature of a complex, pressing public problem. This work concludes with the identification of new research and its potential utility and overall impact for the both the practitioner and academic.