Public Administration

1
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
TWO WORDS: Public and Administration.
PUBLIC

(1) Ordinary people in general; the community

(2) Of, belonging to, or concerning the people as a whole; of or
by the community at large like public affairs, public welfare.
(3) For the use or benefit of all; esp. supported by government
funds like public property.
(4) Of relating to or affecting the people as organized community
like public law.
(5) Acting in official capacity on behalf of the people as a whole
like public service.
 ADMINISTRATION:
- Administer is derived from Latin words ‘ad’ means
‘to’ ‘ministiare’ which means ‘administer’ ‘to serve’.
In its common use, administer means to manage the
affairs of, or to look after people.
- According to F.M. Marx, “It consists in the
systematized ordering of affairs and the calculated
use of resources, aimed at making those things
happen which we want to happen and simultaneously
preventing developments that fail to square with our
intentions”.
 Luther Gulick has said, “Administration has to do with
getting things done; with the accomplishment of defined
objectives”.
 James L. McCanny defined Administration in these words,
“Administration is the organization and use of men and
materials to accomplish a purpose. It is the specialized
vocation of managers who have skills of organizing and
directing men and materials just as definitely as the engineer
has the skill of building structure or a doctor has the skill of
understanding human ailments”.
 Pfiffner and Presthus have defined administration as
“Organisation and direction of human and material resources
to achieve desired ends”.
 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION:
 Percy McQueen “Public Administration is administration
related to the operations of government whether local or
central”.
 Luther Gulick defined public administration in these
words, “Administration has to do with getting things done …
Public Administration is that part of science of administration
which has to do with the government and thus concerns itself
primarily with the executive branch where the work of the
government is done, though there are obviously problems also
in connecting with the legislative and judicial branches”.
 L.D. White – According to him, public administration
“consists of all those operations having for their purpose the
fulfillment of enforcement of public policies as declared by the
competent authority.”
 Pfiffner – thought that public administration “consists of
getting the work of government done by coordinating the
efforts of the people so that they can work together to
accomplish their set tasks. Administration embraces the
activities which may be highly technical or specialized such as
public health and building of bridges… It also involves
managing, directing and supervising the activities of
thousands, even millions of workers so that some order and
efficiency may result from their efforts…..”
 Public Administration:
- Public administration is concerned with the management of
public programs (Denhardt).
- Public administrators (a) work at all levels of government,
both at home and abroad, and (b) they manage nonprofit
organizations, associations, and interest groups of all kinds.
- The substantive fields within which public managers work
range across the varied interests of government and public
affairs, (a) from defense and national security to social welfare
and environmental quality, (b) from the design and
construction of roads and bridges to the exploration of space,
and © from taxation and financial administration to human
resources management.
- Public administration is a commitment to public service.
- Leonard D. White, one of the most thoughtful of the early
writers, commented that “the study of public administration . .
. needs to be related to the broad generalizations of political
theory concerned with such matters as justice, liberty,
obedience, and the role of the state in human affairs” (White,
1948, p. 10).
 The term, Public Administration, is used in two senses:
- In broader sense, it denotes the work involved in the
actual conduct of governmental affairs regardless of the
particular branch of government concerned. Thus we speak of
administration of justice or administration of the legislative
affairs. This viewpoint can be discerned in the in the writings
of L.D.White, Woodrow Wilson, Marshall Dimock and John
Pfiffner.
“Public Administration consists of all those operations having
for their purpose, the fulfillment or enforcement of public
policy”. (L.D.White).
To Woodrow Wilson it “is detailed and systematic application
of law”.
 Modern definition of public administration have returned to
the traditional view, including attention to administrative
officials in all branches of government and even focusing on
those in nonprofit organizations.
- In narrower sense, it denotes the operation of the
particular administrative branch only which we call these days
as the executive branch of the government. A branch of
political science dealing primarily with the structure and
workings of agencies charged with the administration of
governmental functions.
 public administration is concerned with the “operations of the
administrative branch only” (Willoughby, 1927, p. 1).
 According to Prof Herbert Simon, “By public administration is
meant, in common usage, the activities of the executive
branches of national, state, and local governments;
independent boards and commissions set up by Congress and
state legislatures; government corporations; and certain other
agencies of a specialized character” (Simon et al., 1950, p. 7).
 Public Administration and Democratic Values:
- Democratic values clearly affects the work of those in public
and nonprofit organizations, there are some key commitments
associated with democratic governance.
- The term democracy well reflects its roots: the Greek words
demos, meaning “people,” and kratis, meaning “authority.”
Generally speaking, democracy refers to a political system in
which the interests of the people at large prevail.
- There are different conceptions of Democracy. Yet, it soon
became apparent that the.
Westerners associated democracy with such ideas as free
elections, freedom of the press, freedom of movement, and the
freedom to criticize the government, the
- Russians had quite a different conception. For them,
democracy did not necessarily mean government by or of the
people, but rather whether government policy is carried out in
the interest of the people.
- The term democratic is used in many different ways by many
different people. Yet in the American experience, there is
general agreement that democracy refers to a political
system—a way of ordering power and authority in which
decision-making power is widely shared among members of
the society.
- Or to put it in terms of control, democracy is a system in which
many ordinary citizens exercise a high degree of control over
their leaders. (In either case, the opposite would be an
oligarchy, government by the few, or an autocracy, government
by one).
- Democracy is defined not only in terms of processes or
procedures (for example, rule by many), but also by several
important cultural values that are typically pursued in a
democratic society.
- Among these, three—individualism, equality, and liberty—
have been of special importance.
1. The first is individualism, the idea that the dignity and
integrity of the individual is of supreme importance.
Individualism suggests that achieving the fullest potential of
each individual is the best measure of the success of our
political system.
- It is the idea of individualism that is reflected in the familiar
phrasing that all persons are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights and that it is the purpose of
government to secure those rights.
 2. Second is the idea of equality, which does not mean that all
persons are equal in their talents or possessions, but that each
individual has an equal claim to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.
- In this view, each person should be seen as an end, not as a
means; no one should be a mere tool of another.
- Moreover, equality in the field of government would suggest
that differences in

wealth or position are not sufficient reasons for giving one group
preference over another.
- In a democracy, each one has an equal claim to the attention
of the system and should be able to expect just outcomes.
3. A third central value of a democratic society is liberty, or
freedom. This idea suggests that the individual citizen of a
democracy should have a high degree of self-determination.
- One should have the maximum opportunity to select one’s
own purposes in life and to choose the means to accomplish
them.
- Liberty is more than just the absence of constraints; it
suggests the freedom to act positively in pursuit of one’s own
ends. Only by allowing individuals the freedom to choose, it is
argued, will social progress occur.
- The influence of these themes on the development of public
administration is undeniable.
- Similarly, the way in which democracy has been
operationalized in the political tradition has had important
influences on the operation of public organizations.
- For example, take the traditional separation of legislative,
executive, and judicial functions.
 Approaches to the Study of Public Administration:
- David Rosenbloom has argued that these three functions of
government are related to three views of the role of public
administrators (Rosenbloom, 1993, p. 15).
1. The managerial approach to public administration, which
Rosenbloom connects to the executive function, emphasizes the
management and organization of public organizations. As with
Wilson, this view sometimes suggests that management in the public
sector is very much like that in the private sector; that is, it is
primarily concerned with efficiency.
2. The political approach to public administration, related to the
legislative function in government, is more concerned about
ensuring constitutional safeguards, such as those already mentioned.
Efficiency becomes less a concern than effectiveness or
responsiveness.
3. Finally, the legal approach to public administration, related to
the judicial function, emphasizes the administrator’s role in
applying and enforcing the law in specific situations. It is also
concerned with the adjudicatory role of public organizations.
 it is important to understand at the outset that all actions of
public administrators take place within an important political
context: a commitment to democratic ideals and practices.
 Business and Public Administration:
There are some similarities between business and public
administration. Managers across all sectors—public, private,
and nonprofit—are involved in questions of:
(1) organizational design, (2) the allocation of scarce
resources, and (3) the management of people.
 Primary distinction between business and public service is that
business is primarily concerned with making a profit, while
public service is concerned with delivering services or
regulating individual or group behavior in the public interest.
 Three differences are most apparent.
1. Ambiguity:
a. One difference between government and business lies in the
purposes to be served. In most businesses, even those with
service objectives, the bottom-line profit is the basic measure
of evaluating how good a job the organization is doing.
This is not true of public or nonprofit agencies, where the
objectives of the organization may be more ambiguous and
where making or losing money is not the main criterion for
success or failure.
b. Often the objectives of public and nonprofit organizations
are stated in terms of service; for example, an agency’s
mission may be to protect the quality of the environment or to
provide an adequate level of rehabilitative services to the
disabled. Yet, such service objectives are much harder to
specify and to measure.
c. Moreover, most businesses wouldn’t tolerate a money-losing
operation in a depressed area, but a public or nonprofit
organization, though equally attentive to the money being
spent, might well consider meeting human needs more
important than the financial “bottom line.”
 2. Pluralistic Decision Making A second difference between
work in the public service and in business:
 in the public service, at least in a democratic society, requires
that many groups and individuals have access to the decision
process. As a result, decisions that might be made rapidly by
one individual or a small group in a business might, in a public
or nonprofit organization, require input from many diverse
groups and organizations. Consequently, it is difficult to speak
of specific decision centers in government. As such
management of public organizations is much more difficult.
 3. Visibility Finally, managers in public and nonprofit
organizations seem to operate with much greater visibility
than their counterparts in industry.
 The public service in a democratic society is subject to
constant scrutiny by both the press and the public. The media’s
constant scrutiny of policy positions and their labeling of
inconsistencies as weaknesses can be limiting to free
discussion of issues in their formulation stage.
 In case of business organization, this is not be so.
 4. Publicness: These features in turn all derive from the
simple fact that the public or nonprofit manager is pursuing
public purposes.
 In terms of the actions and experiences of the public
administrator, the administrator’s role suggests that, as a public
or nonprofit manager, you must operate with:
(1) one eye toward managerial effectiveness and
(2) the other toward the desires and demands of the public
which calls for effectiveness.
 The tension between efficiency and responsiveness is
inevitable in governmental organizations, a tension that is
absolutely central to your work.
 In case of business, it is not be so. Efficiency is the sole critia
for move forward.
 Issues in Public Administration Theory and Practice:
Two themes that have traditionally characterized work in
public organizations and that continue to be of great
importance today. These themes—politics and administration,
and bureaucracy and democracy—provide a part of the
intellectual and practical context of public administration.
 Although these two themes are most often manifest in
contemporary public administration as a tension between
efficiency and responsiveness. This tension is one that is
absolutely central to the work of public administrators today.
 Politics and Administration:
 Dichotomy between politics and administration is one of the
oldest issues in public administration, continues to hold great
relevance for administrators today.
 Woodrow Wilson, who framed the initial study of public
administration has emphasized: on businesslike practices,
Wilson was concerned with isolating the processes of
administration from the potentially corrupting influences of
politics.
 Wilson wrote, “Administration lies outside the proper sphere
of politics. Administrative questions are not political
questions. Although politics sets the tasks for administration, it
should not be suffered to manipulate its offices” (Wilson,
1887, p. 210). Although policies were to be debated and
decided by politicians, they were to be carried out by a
politically neutral, professional bureaucracy. In this way, the
everyday conduct of government would be isolated from the
potentially corrupting influence of politics.
 The distinction between policy and administration has,
however, been increasingly broken down.
- Managers found that they had expertise that was needed by
policy makers and began to be drawn into the policy process.
- The increasing involvement of administrators in the policy
process was in part attributable to their technical and
professional skills needed to operate public agencies.
- As people with such skills and expertise became a part of
public organizations, they were inevitably called upon to
present their views.
- At the same time, the legislative branches of government (at
all levels) found it difficult to be knowledgeable about every
detail of government and, consequently, were forced to rely
more and more on the expertise of those in public agencies.
- Additionally, the complexity of government meant that
legislative bodies often found it necessary to state laws in
general terms, leaving those within government agencies
considerable discretion to interpret those laws as they saw fit
and, therefore, make policy daily.
 Bureaucracy and Democracy:
A second theme that grew from early discussions of public
administration had to do with the potential for conflict between
democracy and bureaucracy.
- One writer has defined the moral commitments of a
democracy in terms of three standards. First, democratic
principles assume that the individual is the primary measure of
human value and that the development of the individual is the
primary goal of a democratic political system. Second,
democratic morality suggests that all persons are created
equal—that differences in wealth, status, or position should
not give one person or group an advantage over another. Third,
democratic morality emphasizes widespread participation
among the citizens in the making of major decisions (Redford,
1969, p. 8).
 Set against these tenets of democracy are the ideals of
bureaucratic management. To some extent the public sector
looked to the field of business for models of organization.
They found that the growth of large-scale business had led to
the development of large and complex bureaucratic
organizations, organizations that were built around values
quite different from those of democracy. (Although the term
bureaucracy is often used in a pejorative sense, as in
“bureaucratic red tape,” we will use it here in its more neutral
and scientific sense: as a way of organizing work.)
Consequently, the bureaucratic model of organizing was
brought into the public sector.
 The values of bureaucracy included:
first the need to bring together the work of many individuals in
order to achieve purposes far beyond the capabilities of any
single individual.
Second, bureaucratic systems were to be structured
hierarchically, with those at the top having far greater power
and discretion than those at the bottom.
Third, bureaucratic organization generally assumes that power
and authority flow from the top of the organization to the
bottom rather than the other way around.
 (1) In contrast to the democratic value of individuality, there
stood the bureaucratic value of the group or organization;
 (2) in contrast to the democratic values of equality, there stood
the bureaucratic hierarchy; and
 (3) in contrast to the democratic values of participation and
involvement, there stood the bureaucratic value of top-down
decision making and authority.
 A variety of questions are raised. For example, is it proper for
a democratic government to carry out its work through
basically authoritarian organizations? The key issue turns out
to be an emphasis on efficiency as the sole measure of agency
success.
 Efficiency versus Responsiveness:
- On the one hand, it is expected that public and nonprofit
organizations will operate in the most efficient way possible,
getting things done quickly and at the least cost to taxpayers
and donors. On the other hand, public managers must be
constantly attentive to the demands of the citizenry, whether
those demands are expressed through the chief executive,
through the legislature, or directly.
 Three themes seem often to manifest in the tension between
efficiency and responsiveness.
 (1) Are public agencies to concentrate only on creating the
desired outcomes in the most efficient manner possible? Or
should such agencies be responsive to the public interest and
the public will, even though the public interest and public will
may not have been explicitly articulated by elected officials,
especially those in the legislature?
 (2) Time after time, we find evidence of this tension in
discussions on public policy, human resources management,
budgeting and financial management, and so on.
 (3) The tension between efficiency and responsiveness remains
an “unsolved mystery” of public administration. But this
tension helps make public administration such a fascinating
and dynamic field.
 What Do Public Administrators Do?
We will approach these issues by concentrating on the skills
managers need to accomplish their work. In a classic article in
the Harvard Business Review, Robert Katz provided the first
major descriptions of the general skills all managers need:
conceptual, technical, and human (Katz, 1974).
 1. Conceptual skills include the ability to think abstractly,
especially in regard to the manager’s concept of the
organization. This category also involves the ability to see the
organization as a whole, how all the parts or functions work
and fit together, and how making a change in one part will
affect other parts. Conceptual skills also include the ability to
see how the organization, or parts of it, relate to the
organization’s environment.
 2. Technical skills refer to an understanding of, and
proficiency in, the methods, processes, and techniques for
accomplishing tasks. These are, for example, the skills of an
accountant who can conduct an audit or develop an income
statement or the skills of a mechanic who can repair an engine.
 3. Human skills involve the capacity to work effectively as a
member of a group or the ability to get others to work together
effectively. (“Others” may include subordinates, superiors,
managers at the same level, or virtually anyone with whom
one might work on a given project or assignment).
 All these skills are important to managers, but are not equally
important to all managers. Katz makes a strong argument that:
(1) technical skills are most important to managers at the
supervisory level who manage day-to-day operations but
become less and less important as the level of management
increases. On the other hand,
(2) conceptual skills are most important to top-level managers
who must deal with the organization as a whole rather than
with just one or a few parts of it. Conceptual skills are less
important at the middle-management level and least important
at the supervisory level.
 (3) Human skills, however, maintain a constant, high level of
importance; they are critical regardless of one’s level. How
managers’ human skills are employed may vary from level to
level (for example, top managers lead more meetings than
supervisory managers), but as a category, human skills remain
the one constant for managerial success.
 We should consider the (1) knowledge and values associated
with public management (conceptual skills), the (2) techniques
public managers require in such areas as budgeting and
personnel (technical skills), and the (3) personal and
interpersonal qualities that help managers work effectively
with others (human skills).
 Classical View of Administrative Management:
 POSDCORB is an acronym widely used in the field of
Management and Public Administration that reflects the classic
view of administrative management. In Gulick's own words,
the elements of POSDCORB are as follows:
 Planning, that is working out in broad outline the things that
need to be done and the methods for doing them to accomplish
the purpose set for the enterprise;
 Organizing, that is the establishment of the formal structure of
authority through which work subdivisions are arranged,
defined, and co-ordinated for the defined objective;
 Staffing, that is the whole personnel function of bringing in
and training the staff and maintaining favorable conditions of
work;
 Directing, that is the continuous task of making decisions and
embodying them in specific and general orders and
instructions and serving as the leader of the enterprise;
 Coordinating, that is the all important duty of interrelating the
various parts of the work;
 Reporting, that is keeping those to whom the executive is
responsible informed as to what is going on, which thus
includes keeping himself and his subordinates informed
through records, research, and inspection;
 Budgeting, with all that goes with budgeting in the form of
planning, accounting and control.
 NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT:
An Era of Change:
The late 1980s and early 1990 have witnessed a transformation in the
Public Sectors of advanced countries.
- The rigid, hierarchical, bureaucratic form of public administration, is
changing to a flexible, market oriented form of public management.
- This is not simply a matter of reform or a minor change in management
style, but a in the role of government in society and the relationship
between government and the citizenry.
- Traditional Public Administration has been discredited and there is a
search for new paradigm in Public Sector.
- The New Paradigm poses a direct challenge to what was
previously regarded as fundamental and almost eternal principles
of Public Administration.
(i) The first principle was that government should organize
themselves according to the hierarchical, bureaucratic principles
enunciated by the German sociologist Max Weber. It was
assumed that strict adherence to these principles would provide
the single best way operating an organization.
(ii) Second principle was that, once government involved itself in
an area, it became the sole provider of goods and services
through bureaucracy. Direct provision was the standard operating
procedure.
 (iii) Thirdly, it was thought that political and administrative
matters could be separated. The Administration would be an
instrument to carry out instructions, while any matter of policy or
strategy were the preserve of political leadership. This was
assumed to ensure accountability.
(iv) Fourthly, Public Administration was considered a special form
of administration and, therefore, required a professional
bureaucracy, employed for life, with ability to serve the political
masters equally.
- All these seeming varieties have been challenged:
(i) Delivery by bureaucracy is not the only way to provide
government goods and services. Flexible management systems
pioneered by the private sector are being adopted by
governments. Also governments can operate indirectly.
(ii) Political and Administrative matters have been intertwined for a
long time, but the implications of this are being worked out now.
(iii) The public demands better mechanism of accountability where
once the bureaucracy operated separately.
(iv) The case of unusual employment conditions is now much
weaker that it requires persistent intervention.
- By the beginning of the 1990s, a new model of public sector
management was emerging in most advanced countries. The new
model has several incarnations, including:
- ‘Managerialism’ (Pollit, 1990)
- ‘New Public Management’ (Hood, 1991)
- ‘Market-based Public Administration’ (Lan and Rosenbloom,
1992).
- ‘Entrepreneurial Government’ (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992).
 The Trends:

The trends, as such, are:

a. Trend towards ‘marketisation’ of the public sector.
b. Trend away from bureaucracy as an organizing principle
within the public sector.
 In Britain, drawing from Hood (1991) saw Managerialism in
Britain as a determined effort to implement the ‘3 Es’ i.e.
economy,
efficiency, and
effectiveness,
at all levels of British government and argued:
 The ‘new public management’ has the following central
doctrines:-
- a focus on management, not policy, and on performance
appraisal and efficiency;
- the dis-aggregation of public bureaucracies into agencies which
deal with each other on a user-pay basis;
- the use of quasi-markets and contracting out to foster
competition;
 - cost-cutting;
- and a style of management which emphasizes, amongst other
things, output targets, limited-term contracts, monetary
incentives and freedom to manage.
 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development-Paris based organization of 24 industrialized
countries) argues that many of its members are trying to make
their public sector more managerial with a common feature being
the introduction of a ‘more contractual, participative,
discretionary style of relationship: between levels of hierarchy;
between control agencies and operating units; and between
producing units, be they public or private’. Their view can be
summarized as under:-
(i) Improving human resources including performance pay;
(ii) Staff involvement in decision-making;
(iii) Relaxing controls, but imposing performance targets;
(iv) Using Information technology;
(v) Service to clients;
(vi) use charges;
(vii) contracting out;
(viii) deregulation of monopolies.
 Conception of New Public Management by Different Authors:

 Hood, 1991; Dunleavy and Hood, 1994

1. hands-on professional management
2. shift to desegregation of units into quasicontractual or
quasi-market forms
3. shift to greater competition and mixed provision,
contracting relationship in the public sector; opening up
provider roles to competition
4. stress on private sector styles of management practice
5. greater emphasis on output controls
6. explicit standards and measures of performance
7. stress on greater discipline and parsimony (tendency to be
over careful in spending money) in resource use; reworking
budgets to be transparent in accounting terms
8. changing employment relations
9. deregulation of the labour market
 Pollitt, 1993 and 1994
1. decentralizing management authority within public services
2. breaking up traditional monolithic (single large block)
bureaucracies into separate agencies
3. Introducing market and quasimarket type mechanisms to
foster competition
4. clearer separation between purchaser and provider function
5. stress on quality, responsiveness to customers
6. performance targets for managers
7. capping/fixed budgets
8. downsizing
9. deregulation of the labour market
 Ferlie et al., 1996
1. decentralization; organizational unbundling (untying); new forms
of corporate governance; move to board of directors mode
2. split between strategic core and large operational periphery
3. elaborate and develop quasimarkets as mechanisms for allocating
resources within the public sector
4. split between public funding and independent service provision
5. stress on provider responsiveness to consumers; major concern
with service quality
6. more transparent methods to review performance
7. strong concern with value-for-money and efficiency gains
8. market-oriented government: leveraging change through the
market
9. anticipatory government: prevention rather than cure
 Borins, 1994; Commonwealth, 1996
1. increased autonomy, particularly from central agency
controls
2. split between strategic core and large operational periphery
3. receptiveness to competition and an open-minded attitude
about which public activities should be performed by the
public sector as opposed to the private sector
4. creating synergy (combined or cooperative action or force)
between the public and private sectors
5. providing high quality services that citizens value; service
users as customers
6. organizations and individuals measured and rewarded on the
performance targets met
7. provision of human and technological resources that
managers need to meet their performance targets
8. market-oriented government: leveraging change through the
market
9. anticipatory government: prevention rather than cure
 Osborne and Gaebler:
These ideas were first crystallized and popularized in the
United States by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler’s best-
selling book, Reinventing Government (1992; see also Osborne
and Plastrik 1997). Drawing on the experiences of other
countries, especially New Zealand, as well as experiences at
the state and local level in America, Osborne and Gaebler, a
journalist and a former city manager, provided a number of
now-familiar “principles” through which “public
entrepreneurs” might bring about massive governmental
reform, ideas that remain at the core of the New Public
Management: ( Reference: The New Public Service: Robert B.
Denhardt and Janet Vinzant Denhardt)
1. Catalytic Government, (Steering Rather than Rowing):
Public entrepreneurs move beyond existing policy options,
serving instead as catalysts within their communities to
generate alternate courses of action. They choose to steer,
recognizing a wide range of possibilities and striking a
balance between resources and needs, rather than rowing,
concentrating on a single objective. Those who steer define
their future, rather than simply relying on traditional
assumptions (Osborne and Gaebler 1992, 35).
2. Community-Owned Government, (Empowering Rather than
Serving):
Public entrepreneurs have learned that past efforts to serve
clients produced dependence, as opposed to economic and
social independence. Rather than maintain this approach, these
entrepreneurs shift ownership of public initiatives into the
community. They empower citizens, neighborhood groups, and
community organizations to be the sources of their own
solutions (Osborne and Gaebler 1992, 52).
3. Competitive Government, (Injecting Competition into
Service Delivery):
Public entrepreneurs have recognized that attempting to
provide every service not only places a drain on public
resources but also causes public organizations to overextend
their capabilities, thus reducing service quality and
effectiveness. These entrepreneurs counter this trend by
fostering competition among public, private, and
nongovernmental service providers. The results are “greater
efficiency, enhanced responsiveness, and an environment that
rewards innovation” (Osborne and Gaebler 1992, 80–83).
 4. Mission-Driven Government, (Transforming Rule-Driven
Organizations):
Public entrepreneurs have seen how excessive rule-making in
bureaucratic organizations stifles innovation and limits
government performance. Such rule-making is further
supported by rigid systems of budgeting and human resources.
In contrast, public entrepreneurs focus first on the mission of
the group—what the organization strives for internally and
externally. Then, the budget, human resources, and other
systems are designed to reflect the overall mission (Osborne
and Gaebler 1992, 110).
 5. Results-Oriented Government, (Funding Outcomes, Not
Inputs):
Public entrepreneurs believe that government should be
dedicated to achieving substantive public goals, or outcomes,
as opposed to concentrating strictly on controlling the public
resources expended in doing the job. Current evaluation and
reward systems focus mainly on fiscal efficiency and control,
rarely asking what impacts were gained from each public
initiative. Public entrepreneurs transform these systems to be
more results oriented—that is, accountability based on
government performance (Osborne and Gaebler 1992, 140–
141).
 6. Customer-Driven Government, (Meeting the Needs of the
Customer, Not the Bureaucracy):
Public entrepreneurs have learned from their private-sector
counterparts that unless one focuses on the customer, the
citizen will never be happy. Since legislative bodies provide
most public resources to government agencies, these agencies
operate completely blind of their customer base. They function
according to their own priorities, and those demanded of them
by the funding source, instead of what they customers actually
need. Public entrepreneurs stand this system on its head,
serving the customer first (Osborne and Gaebler 1992, 166–
167).
 7. Enterprising Government, (Earning Rather than
Spending): Public entrepreneurs face the same fiscal
constraints as their traditional counterparts, but the difference
is in the way they respond. Rather than raise taxes or slash
public programs, public entrepreneurs find innovative ways to
do more with less. By instituting the concept of profit motive
into the public realm—for example, relying on charges and
fees for public services and investments to fund future
initiatives—public entrepreneurs are able to add value and
ensure results, even in tight financial times (Osborne and
Gaebler 1992, 203–206).
 8. Anticipatory Government, (Prevention Rather than Cure):
Public entrepreneurs have grown tired of funneling resources
into programs to resolve public problems. Instead, they believe
the primary concern should be prevention, stopping the
problem before it ever occurs. Government in the past prided
itself on service delivery—on being able to put forth initiatives
aimed at curing public ills. However, as the problems in
postindustrial society became more complex, government lost
its capacity to respond. By returning to prevention, public
organizations will be more efficient and effective for the future
(Osborne and Gaebler 1992, 219–221).
 9. Decentralized Government, (From Hierarchy to
Participation and Teamwork):
Public entrepreneurs appreciate the role centralized
organizations served in the industrial age. These institutions
represented the first steps toward professionalization in the
field of public administration. Yet, the age of the hierarchical
institution has passed. Advances in information technology,
improved communications systems, and increases in
workforce quality have brought in a new age of more flexible,
teambased organizations. Decision making has been extended
throughout the organization—placed in the hands of those who
can innovate and determine the high-performance course
(Osborne and Gaebler 1992, 250–252).
 10. Market-Oriented Government, (Leveraging Change
Through the Market):
Public entrepreneurs respond to changing conditions not with
traditional approaches, such as attempting to control the entire
situation, but rather with innovative strategies aimed at
shaping the environment to allow market forces to act. Each
jurisdiction—whether a nation, a state, or a local community—
represents a market, a collection of people, interests, and social
and economic forces. Public entrepreneurs realize that these
markets remain beyond the control of any single political
body. So, their strategy centers on structuring the environment
so that the market can operate most effectively, thus ensuring
quality of life and economic opportunity (Osborne and Gaebler
1992, 280–282).
Osborne and Gaebler intended these ten principles to serve as
a new conceptual framework for public administration—an
analytical checklist to transform the actions of government….
This shift is under way all around us, but because we are not
looking for it—because we assume that all governments have
to be big, centralized, and bureaucratic—we seldom see it. We
are blind to the new realities, because they do not fit our
preconceptions” (Osborne and Gaebler 1992, 321).
 This neo-Taylorist movement (Pollitt, 1993) was driven by the
search for efficiency and, according to Hood:
“... generated a set of administrative doctrines based on the
ideas of professional management expertise as portable, ...
paramount over technical expertise, requiring high
discretionary power to achieve results ... and central and
indispensable to better organizational performance, through
the development of appropriate cultures ... and the active
measurement and adjustment of organizational outputs”
(1991:6).
The proponents of NPM see the Weberian bureaucratic model
as rigid, rule-bound, slow moving bureaucracies that are
costly, inefficient and unresponsive to their users.
 Terms and Definitions:
 Autocracy: Government by one.
 Democracy: A political system in which decision-making
power is widely shared among members of the society.
 Equality: The idea that all persons have an equal claim to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
 Individualism: The idea that the dignity and integrity of the
individual is of supreme importance.
 Liberty: The idea that individual citizens of a democracy
should have a high degree of self-determination.
 Oligarchy: Government by the few.
 Policy analysts: Persons who provide important information
about public programs through research into the operations
and impacts of the programs.
 Program managers: Persons ranging from the executive
level to the supervisory level who are in charge of particular
governmental programs.
 Public administration: The management of public programs.
 Staff managers: Persons who support the work of program
managers through budgeting and financial management,
personnel and labor relations, and purchasing and
procurement.
.