( MPA 103 )

EMERGING SUBFIELDS OF PUBLIC

ADMINISTRATION
Public Administration is an ever-changing scholarly and
professional field. As such, there are new subfields emerging,
which are: public enterprise management, voluntary sector
management, and spatial information management.
Emerging
Subfields of
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION

Public Voluntary Spatial

Enterprise Sector Information
Management Management Management
 1. Public Enterprise Management: The term public
enterprise denotes a form of human activity operated and managed
by the state government or any public authority. It is an undertaking
where the investment is owned and controlled by any government
organization whether national or local. Thus, public enterprise gained
momentum during the 20th century. In the Philippines, privatization
becomes an area of public administration in the 1980s.

2. Voluntary Sector Management: The role of the voluntary

sector in the delivery of public good has become one special concern
of public administration. Voluntary sectors like the civil society and
nonprofit organizations or the nongovernmental organizations have
also become effective alternative service providers in the community
development programs.
 3. Spastial Information and Management: Brillantes, et
al., stressed that in delivering public goods and services
efficiently or effectively, it is very important that we will be
aided with support tools enabling the use of all kinds of spatial
data/information which can be processed immediately and can
be transported easily. This technology is currently used by many
government agencies and corporations, thus the introduction
and popularization of some technology terms in government
such as e-government, e-commerce, geo-visualization, e-finance,
and among others. Other systems are also introduced in system
information management like global positioning systems and
remote sensing.
.
 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
AS AN ART AND AS A SCIENCE
It can be said that Public Administration is an art of government
in terms of the conduct and management of public affairs; in terms of
dealing with bureaucratic inefficiencies and red tape; in terms of
implementation of public policies and programs; and the use of
resources for public good.

American and British scholars believed that administration is an

art better learned in practice than in school, where basic preparation
is enough to go a long way. PA as an art is an activity that can be
improved or enhanced by one‘s experience gained through practice,
training skills, and responsive insights applied to a particular situation.
Such application through practice of creativity however may prove
futile unless interpreted and evaluated by a researcher.
 Science, on the other hand, assumes that its object of
inquiry is amenable to scientific method, e.g., to explicit theory,
empirical research, logical, and even quantitative analysis.
Consequently then, PA is also a science because knowledge is
generated and evaluated according to scientific method.

Thus, Bautista et al., (1993) stated:

At its best, knowledge in PA is or should be useful for a

variety of purposes. It must inform our understanding of classes
and interrelationships of policy and administrative phenomena
through appropriate description and explanation of trends,
events, or behaviors, the conditions under which they obtain and
the variable relations involved. Such understanding must be based
on the interpretative framework of theory or if one likes, “ the
informing grace of ideology. ” In turn, it must provide the basis and
contain the critical elements needed for evaluating the relative
weighs, concomitants, and consequence of administrative events
or actions.
 Furthermore, knowledge in PA must be sufficiently
cumulative to enable one to predict such consequences, and to
prescribe action to enable the subject to control and influence
the cause and outcomes of events. The crucial tools of
evaluation and prescription require a clear conception of the
elements of values and purposes (as ell as an eye on motives and
means) as independent variables, criteria of judgment or
objective functions. The difficulties of these tasks are
accentuated by the various roles which the student of PA may
play as a researcher, critic or advocate. (p.41)

Ocampo (1993) in Bautista et al., citing R. Thomas said,

Public Administration can be made into a science, and that the
scientific study of administration leads to the discovery of
principles of administration, which principles in turn determine
the way in which the goals of economy and efficiency can be
realized.
 On the other hand, British doctrines argued that
administration cannot be reduced to science alone. It is based on
science and ethics and this combination constitutes a philosophy
of administration. Moreover, the philosophical study of
administration leads to the discovery not only of scientific
principles but also of ethical ideas, which include a qualitative
rather than quantitative kind of efficiency due to the ethical
element explicitly introduced by philosophy.

As reported by:
DARLENE JOSEFINA P. ACEDO
GROUP I