User:Tomoreje/Comparison between private and public administration

Public administration may apply to a broad variety of services. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, public administration is defined as the body of persons that constitutes the governing authority of a political unit or organization; the officials comprising the governing body of a political unit and constituting the organization as an active agency; and finally, a small group of persons holding simultaneously the principle political objective offices of a nation or other political unit and being responsible for the direction and supervision of public affairs Public administration can be broadly described as the development, implementation and study of branches of government policy. The pursuit of the public good by enhancing civil society, ensuring a well-run, fair, and effective public service are some of the goals of the field. Public administration is carried out by public servants who work in public departments and agencies, at all levels of government, and perform a wide range of tasks. Public administrators collect and analyze data (statistics), monitor budgets, draft legislation, develop policy, and execute legally mandated government activities. Public administrators serve in many roles: ranging from "front-line" positions serving the public (e.g., peace officers, parole officers, border guards); administrators (e.g., auditors); analysts (e.g., policy analysts); and managers and executives of government branches and agencies. Factors that differentiate public to private administration, (by Denhardt) are three fundamental differences between the two.

a)	The most apparent difference between the two sectors is their organizing principles or goal. (Denhardt) While private administration has a definite mission, which is the pursuit of profit or stability or growth of revenues, public administration, on the other hand, has ambiguous purposes. Furthermore the ambiguity of purposes is exacerbated by too many unnecessary and inoperable agencies, with purposes that overlap and bloated bureaucracies. The goal of public administration is to enact public policies, but the overlapping and the main ambiguity of most of these policies, and the vagueness of the enactment of these policies make public administration's purpose to be more ambiguous. Nevertheless, the fact that public institutions are not profit driven, should not lead one to believe that public sector employees and managers are not concerned about financial matters. As is the case with private companies, public sector units and organizations fight for funding and influence.

b)	The second factor that makes the public sector different from the private is decision making. In public administration, the decision must be and should be pluralistic. In a democratic republic where all key decisions are made in politicized environment, this allows for maximum participation: open debate, multiple veto points - a decision making hierarchy where consensus must be achieved at each level, ideally, an informed decision. While private administration's decision-making is much simpler- it's monopolistic or close to monopolistic. This type of decision-making would avoid any conflicts in interest; hence, the goal is clearly defined.

c)	The visibility of public administrators is another notable difference between public and private sector. While a manager in a private business may work in relative obscurity, the public manager must operate in the public eye. His or her actions are constantly subjected to public scrutiny. The publicity of the work of the public manager doesn't end in merely carrying out public policy; the public manager has to respond to the demands of the public. The public also demands accountability in government, an assurance that those who formulate, implement and administer public programs will act responsibly.

d)	One other quality that makes public sector different from private is in the form of unit analysis. (According to Robin Boadway) Apart from publicly owned-companies, most public institutions are part of a larger chain of command and control where it is harder to draw a line between the different parts of the system- and where legal frameworks provide little help in this. For instance: public agencies- like research councils or directorates of health- interact closely with ministries as well as subordinate institution and "users". The innovation activities in these institutions are heavily influenced by decisions made above and below the chain of commands.

e)	The closest parallel to private sector will be large conglomerates or multinational companies. The complex system of organizations with various tasks- often conflicting- is one of the reasons for the inefficiency of public administration. Although, some authors in public administration, such Woodrow Wilson in The Study of Public Administration, where he reiterated that the evolution of public administration together with its complex system and increasing number of bureaucracies is to complement the population growth, but a population with sufficient number of agencies to manage them and with high marginal productivity for each public employee, is better than a bloated bureaucracy with little or zero marginal productivity, and worse, unnecessary and redundant purpose.

f)	Although political aspect is both apparent in public and private sector, political aspect is more important in the public than in the private sector. Policy decisions normally affect companies directly and indirectly, through laws, regulations and financial support. The public sector is at least formally controlled by elected politicians. The intimate link between this governance dimension and funding of current expenses of the activities implies a very strong link between ownership and control on the one hand and the growth strategies of the subsidiary organizations.

References 1.	Woodrow Wilson (The Study of Public Administration). 2.	Administration & Society periodical by Robert B. Denhardt 3.	Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations by Janet and Robert Denhardt.