Abstract
Problems facing administrative systems are increasingly becoming rather complex
and a discipline known to focus on understanding how administrative systems of
government function and preparing people to work in such systems to promote
efficiency and effectiveness has to face the complexity challenge. The discipline
of Public Administration (PA) must be in position to produce graduates who have
the right skills, attitudes, competencies and capacities to navigate the complex
environment in which service delivery is currently based. This challenge touches
on a significant question, that is, whether knowledge from a single discipline can
produce the right people. Some authors have previously accused PA of not being
fit to be a discipline because of its ‘promiscuous’ nature as it borrows from
many other disciplines to build its knowledge base. Such an accusation is likely to
remain because problems of government today cannot be solved by people–civil
servants and politicians with one disciplinary focus. It is for this reason that this
article examines whether PA ought to be multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary or
trans-disciplinary (MIT).