You are correct that there generally has been less public sector fieldwork than there has been private sector fieldwork on leadership changes.  However, let me suggest how you state your focus makes a big difference in the literature you could cite and apply.  Organization culture has often been changed by new leaders in the private sector.  Instead of talking in terms of denigrating the old leadership, the literature generally stresses the new culture that is being created, and of course the very important role the new leaders are playing.  Fads often last on the order of 5-8 years.  This seems very wasteful, and many people in academia have suggested it would be better to state some goals based on self criticism, look at the programs that exist, either select a current program or create a new one, implement it, measure and revise when needed, based on negative results or mixed results.  Instead of doing this, many new leaders drop the old program, to divorce themselves from the past.  Copying the latest program saves money on doing the research and development, and others have worked out the kinks.  It is easier to sell a proven program to others inside the organization.  Perhaps most importantly, putting a new program in place projects power and leadership.  A new leader looks to be up to date and in charge.  When it comes to the public sector, a new leader often brings in a surrounding group of associates (e.g. a cabinet).  The programs of past elected leaders are often caste aside, having been solutions that were from opposing parties, or did not work as well as planned.  Since there is less of this sort of literature, you can blaze new trails.  It is far more common to bash the old leaders in politics than it is in the private sector.  For example, Obama kept referring to the recession Bush left him and the international disarray he had to diplomatically repair.  Whenever elections are contested, at least one candidate will  offer change from the status quo and harp on the mistakes of the past.  In closing, consider looking at the organization culture literature. Regards, Bruce

The salient feature of Nazi crimes in the Second World War was their bureaucratic nature. Anticipating at the international military tribunal in Nuremberg in 1947 the protest of major Nazi war criminals that they were only doing their jobs, the prosecution leveled the charge that “[t]he fact that the defendant acted pursuant to an order of his government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility.” That article stood as a flat rejection, with applications thereafter through international law in other walks of life albeit to date mainly military, of evasion of responsibility. (In relation to this, Moral Courage in the Workplace, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254583225_Moral_Courage_in_Organizations, may be of interest.)

This said, most will agree one should not stretch the concept of "administrative evil" to find applications here, there, and everywhere. Black and White Thinking induces cognitive distortion to give a (false) sense of security and control over uncertainties. Echoing @Fortado, it is indeed better to approach such matters as corporate amnesia from the angle of organizational culture but also with reference to knowledge management, learning organizations, organizational configuration, and organizational learning.

Article Moral Courage in Organizations

A “people’s history” suggests an alternative to an official history. But there is no official account of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. After Mao died, the Chinese people cut a tacit deal with the Communist Party: Raise our living standards and we will allow you to stay in power; we will not ask questions about the nightmare we endured.

Frank Dikotter’s gripping, horrific and at times sensationalistic “The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962-1976,” the third volume of his work on the Mao years, challenges the Chinese people to address those missing years. Drawn from hundreds of English-language and Chinese eyewitness accounts, newly available archival records, online Cultural Revolution documentary projects and foreign and Chinese scholarship, the book paints such a damning portrait of Mao and Communist Party governance that if it were widely circulated in China, it could undermine the legitimacy of the current regime.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/books/review/the-cultural-revolution-a-peoples-history-1962-1976-by-frank-dikotter.html?_r=0

Thank you kindly to Suhair, Olivier and Bruce for assisting me in focussing my thinking about this issue.

 What is interesting is that in this particular case, there is a focussed and conscious effort to erase the past.  Prior to this, the decision-making models used in the organization, especially in times of crisis, drew on clues and cues from past practice and history.  What makes the present situation unique is the heavy emphasis on "in-" vs. "out" groups, and the extinguishing of critical upward feedback , in exactly the manner noted by Dennis Tourish and Paul Robson's work on the subject.   Other salient and features of this particular regime include leader moral disengagement, dark triad emergence resulting in features eerily familiar to the "neurotic" organization, described by Kets de Vries and Miller.  Stark similarities to the dark side of transformational leadership, as described by Tourish in the book of the same name, have also been noted.  

All of these factors seemed to emerge fully formed under the new regime, which has led me to believe as Art Padilla and company noted in their work on the "toxic triangle", that changes in the environment--for example, brand new board members which changed the face of governance in a marked way--have created an 'ambience' conducive to the emergence of dark side leadership in this school district.