Challenge of Effective Public Management

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Challenge of Effective Public Management

• By
• Chandra-nuj Mahakanjana, Ph.D.
• GSPA, NIDA

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• 9/11
• Weakness in the way agencies were organized and
  managed
• Organization and managerial problem ? inadequate
  communication and handling crucial info

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Understanding management of public organizations

• Skepticism about government
• Public-private continuum
• Body of management knowledge has paid too little
  attention to the public sector ? managing
  bureaucracy
• Legitimate skepticism about public org VS.
  recognition of their indispensable roles in
  society

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• Need to improve their effectiveness
  (efficiency-effectiveness)
• Government context (envi) influences public
  organization and management ? constraining
  performance
• Gov organization and managers perform better than
  perceived

5

• More authority responsibility to Dept. of
  homeland security
• Go against the trend of anti gov. movement
• Resentment of taxes and ineffective government
  performance
• Politicians attack Bureaucracy
• Red tape

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• Public org (in the U.S.) ? great achievement
• Small proportion of the GDP
• Low taxes
• Strong anti-gov role demand for a strong and
  active government have continued

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• Both government private activities have
  strengths and weaknesses
• Both are still very crucial for its existence
• Challenge ? designing the mix and balance of the
  two while attaining effective management of both

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• Organization Behavior
• Psychology
• Individual behavior
• Group behavior
• Organization Theory
• Sociology
• Org as a whole
• Org envi
• Goals
• Effectiveness
• Strategy
• Decision making
• Change management

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Public Management

• Ineffective public management
• Effective operation
• Control over by democratic processes
• Need to be balanced

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Dilemmas of improving public management

• Improving ? Reform
• Negative, control-oriented
• Damage public service at the end

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Defining Effective Public Management

• Perception of government incompetence ? crisis in
  public management
• Confusion between reinventing government
  government cutback

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Image of incompetence

• Why?
• People in private sector are smarter?
• Government employees are lazy and corrupt?
• Government cannot get any work done?

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• Lots of successful government programs, but no
  attention given
• Negative image remains
• Media ? Public sector failures are more difficult
  to hide than failures in private sector
• Fishbowl atmosphere

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Rules and regulations in public sector

• Not designed for rapid and effective operation
• But to combat fraud and improper political
  influences
• If rules and regulations are ignored ? media
  public will suspect fraud or corruption

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• Fishbowl atmosphere ? always negative image of
  public manager

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Image problem

• Bumbling bureaucrat (stereotype by media
  politicians)
• Inept bureaucrat ? national economy
• Too simple ? ignore the benefit of government
  programs in economic growth (ex. infrastructure)
• Social security program ? more opportunity for
  young generation (not having to take care of
  their parents)

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• causes
• 1) Bureaucrat bashing by the media politicians
  ? easy to do and draw more attention than trying
  to explain how complex their situation is
• Public policy process is so complicated and
  involve trade-off (usually not notice by the
  media)

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• 2) Bureaucrat avoiding choices
• Using vague language to avoid choices
• Making choices ? draw criticism (both from
  internal public in general)
• 3) Extreme Formality (red tape)
• Rely on written communication
• Focus on accountability
• Habit
• Leads to in effective and costly management
  practices ? negative image

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• 4) Public managers ? lack of control over goal
  setting (unlike those in private sector)
• Private sector ? BOD is controlled or related to
  org managers
• Public sector ? BOD elected legislators and
  executives )who are more focusing on their
  political popularity more than organizational
  performance
• Political interests always change without much
  warning
• Successful public managers 1) adjust programs
  rapidly, 2) foresee changes in policy direction,
  3) build org capacity for change

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???????????????????

• 1) Negative image ? Bureaucrats self perception
• negative thinking
• psychology of failure
• Ex. Roper family (p.5)
• self-defeated define success as the absence
  of failure
• Low expectations
• Ignore sense of vision
• Make fun of those who are ambitious
• Same manager in private sector ? fired
• In public sector ? impossible to fire ? hard to
  measure performance objectively
• Hard to measure success (unlike balance sheet
  in private sector

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• 2) Letting the constraint constrain you
• Accept problems and obstacles (instead of
  searching for solutions) ? explanation for
  nonperformance
• Give up easily
• Due to the love-hate relationship with government
  (need government to do things for them but not
  to them)

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• 3) Allowing caution to become inertia
• Caution? paralysis
• New projects are abandon once tentative negative
  signals are received (ex. some other powerful
  public orgs do not favor the project proposal
• Ex. Internet USPS (p. 10)
• Emphasize process over product
• Standard operation procedures (SOP)

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• 4) Hiding behind ambiguity
• Use of unclear language
• Ex. disturbed man
• Hide their actions behind unclear phases, passive
  voice, refuse to agree to logical conclusions
• To prevent outsiders from understanding who is
  doing what to whom!!
• To hide poor or nonexistent performance (using
  vague statement of goals, unclear assignments of
  responsibility)
• Create impression that they are achieving goals
  while actually achieving very little
• Focus on image more than actual performance
• Ex. preventive-retaliatory invasion
• Ex. revenue enhancements tax increases

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• 5) Forgetting that people matter
• Forgetting that org people ? people count
• Effective Management art of getting people to
  do the right things ? obtain resources to create
  incentives to achieve org goals
• Org as organic entities (living, breathing,
  being) organism ? need nourishment from envi
• Public managers usually ignore this essential
  concept? forgetting to interact and communicate
  with people who work for them ? deal with staff
  as abstractions ? productivity impaired ? org
  lost ability to attract resources from its envi

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• Ex. of empowering people (p.13)
• Goodwill Industries of Tulsa ? shifting people
  from welfare to work ? (Nonprofit, receiving
  grants from Oklahoma state)
• In 2000 ? Okl. Started to give grants based on
  outcome rather than output
• Output placing most people from welfare to work
• Outcome meaningful welfare-to-work number of
  people who keep their new jobs) ? staff need to
  spend more time with their clients to make sure
  they suit the job
• Allowing people to do their best
• Focusing on goal
• Giving staff to feel they are in control of what
  they are doing

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• Effective public manager must understand the
  psychological, economic, and social needs that
  motivate their workforce
• BUT, normally, public managers are not trained to
  manage
• Rudeness ? dealing with subordinates as they were
  not valuable human beings
• Have one personality for their staff/another
  personality for their boss
• Example p. 15

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Innovative, Effective Public Manager

• Effective management
• active, aggressive, and innovative effort to
  overcome constraints and obstacles
• Positive with Can-do attitude
• Make things happen
• Pursue goals by thinking and acting strategically
• Understand why things are happening and how
  things can be changes
• Touch with informal network (SC?) ? information,
  ideas, initiatives
• Learning, teaching, experimenting, changing
• Understand org envi
• Able to Project the effect of the envi
• Understand constrain and influence of the envi
• Entrepreneurship

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• Risk taking
• Bigger numbers of government employees
• Professionalization of government service (MPA,
  MBA)
• Public management ? more on private contractors
  to provide services
• Privatization, competition, contracting
• Innovative public-private partnership (ex.)

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Need for effective and innovative public
management

• Economic reason (free market)
• Modern industrial life
• Labor moved from direct production of food,
  clothing, and shelter ? manage info, provide
  services, profession
• Econ downturn, disease, terrorists, fear of
  flying, homeless ? government intervention
• Trend ? reduce government role ? threat to
  liberty
• Reality ? economic interdependence is a far great
  constraint than power of government
• Growth of government reflection of economic
  reality (material consumption)

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• Government (Traditional value)
• Liberty, family, spirituality, envi preservation
• Plastic bags toxic-free envi
• Fresh fruit safe pesticides
• Material wealth spiritual fulfillment
• Free market DOES NOT designed to protect
  traditional value

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What Makes Public Organizations Distinctive

• Experts on management Org ? treat differences
  bt public private orgs as unimportant issue
• Generic theory of organization
• Broadly apply to all types of organizations
• Standard principles to govern administrative
  structures of all organization

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Public Organizations

• If public and private organizations are the same
  ? questions are
• Can we nationalize all industrial firms?
• Can we privatize all government agencies?

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• If no, this means there are some important
  differences in the administration of public and
  private organization

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Purpose of public organizations

• Public organization inevitable components of
  free-market economies (Downs, 1967)
• Thomas Hobbes ? State of Nature

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Politics Market

• Political Hierarchy ? Polyarchy ? Political
  authority ? social control
• People willing to stop at red light vs. paying
  them to do so
• Can be clumsy, ineffective, poorly adapted to
  local circumstances, resistance to change

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• Market ? voluntary exchanges
• Producers
• ? induce customers to engage willingly in
  exchanges with them
• ? incentive to produce what consumers want, as
  efficiently as possible
• Freedom flexibility
• Efficiently use of resources
• However, have limited capacity in handling
  certain problems (ex.?) that require government
  action

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• Public goods Free riders
• tragedy of the common
• Services that benefit to everyone in society
• Free-riders ? get common benefit, let others pay
• Individual incompetence
• People lack sufficient edu or info to make wise
  individual choices in some areas ex. medicines,
  food safety ? need government regulations

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• Externalities/Spillovers
• Costs that spill over to other people who are not
  part of a market exchange (air pollution, water
  contamination ? Government intervention (EPA
  Environmental Protection Agency)

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• Government ? correct problems that economic
  market creates or unable to address
• Monopolies
• Income redistribution
• Provide services that are too risky/too expensive
  for private competitors to provide (facility for
  handicaps)
• Conservative economists
• ? think that market will eventually solves all
  these problems
• ? Government makes these problems worse

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Political Rationales for Government

• Maintain law, justice, social organization
• Maintain individual rights freedom
• Provide national security and stability
• Promote general prosperity
• Provide direction for the nation communities
• Provide services that are not exchanged on
  economic markets (but based on general social
  values, public interest, politically imposed
  demands of groups (politics)

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Meaning and Nature of Public Organizations
Public Management

• Public (Latin) ? people
• Private (Latin) ? set apart from government as a
  personal matter

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Three major factors

• Interests affected
• benefits or losses are communal or individuals
• Access to facilities, resources, information
• Agency
• A person/org acts as individual or for the
  community as a whole

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Agencies Enterprises Continuum

• Agencies ------------------- Enterprises
  
• (Public)
  (Private)

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Ownership Funding
Public Ownership
Private Ownership
Public Funding (taxes, gov contract)
Private Funding (sales, private donations)
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Distinctive Characteristics of public Management

• Environmental Factors
• Organization-Environment Transactions
• Organizational Roles, Structures, and Processes

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Environmental Factors

• No economic markets for outputs
• Depend on governmental funding
• No incentives for cost reduction, efficiency,
  effective performance
• Low efficiency allocating resources
• Weak reflection of consumer preferences
• Weak supply-demand relations
• Less clear on market indicators and info that
  lead to managerial decisions

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• Heavy formal legal constraints
• Oversight by legislative branch, executive
  branch, courts
• Constraints on operation procedures
• Managers have less autonomy in making choices
• Leading to more and more formal administrative
  controls
• External formal authorities involved
• Intensive external political influences
• Bargaining, negotiating, lobbying, public
  opinion, interest groups, constituent pressure
• Need political support

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Organization-Environment Transactions

• Production of public goods
• Handle externalities
• Outputs are not transferable to economic market
  at a market price
• Gov activities are coercive, monopolistic,
  unavoidable, unique sanctioning power
• Financing of activities are mandatory
• Activities have broader impact and greater
  symbolic significance
• Involve public interest
• Pressure on public managers
• Expectation of fairness, responsiveness, honesty,
  transparency, and accountability

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Org roles, structures, and processes

• Unclear goals
• Vagueness, intangibility, hard to measure goals
  and performance criteria
• Debatable value-laden goal (clean envi, public
  safety, better living standards for the poor,
  etc)
• Multi goals
• Efficiency, accountability, transparency,
  responsiveness
• Fairness, equality, distribution, moral
  correctness

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• Conflicting goals
• Involve trade-off (due to limited resources)
• Value conflicting
• Efficiency vs. transparency
• Efficiency vs. social equality
• Efficiency vs. accountability

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• More political roles
• More meetings with external interest groups and
  political authorities
• More skill on balancing external political
  relations with internal management functions
• Weaker authority over subordinates (due to
  institutional constraints, ex. civil service
  personnel system, purchasing procurement
  systems
• Turnover of top executive leaders (elections,
  political appointments

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• Structure
• More red-tape, elaborate bureaucratic structure
• More constraints on administration

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Environment of Public Organizations

• public organizations tend to be subject to more
  directions and interventions from political
  actors and authorities who seek to direct and
  control them
• Public manager ? ability to analyze and monitor
  their environment

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General Environmental Conditions

• Technological conditions ? knowledge and
  capability in sciences, etc
• Legal conditions ? law, regulations, legal
  procedures, court decisions
• Political conditions ? political process,
  institution, and forms of government in a given
  society ? capitalism, socialism, communism,
  electoral outcomes, political party system
• Economic conditions ? prosperity, inflation,
  interest rates, tax rates, labor, capital,
  economic market

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• Demographic conditions ? age, gender, race,
  religion, ethnic
• Ecological conditions ? physical envi, climate,
  pollution, natural resources
• Cultural Conditions ? predominant values,
  attitudes, beliefs, social customs, socialization
  process, family structure, work orientation

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Examples of Political and Institutional
Environments of Public Organizations

• General values
• Political economic traditions
• Constitution provisions (ex. democratic elections
  and representation/ unitary state/ fused power,
  etc.)

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• Values performance criteria for government orgs
• Efficiency
• Effectiveness
• Timeliness
• Reliability
• Reasonableness
• Accountability
• Legality
• Responsiveness to rule of law
• Responsiveness to public demands
• Ethical standards
• Fairness, equal treatment
• Openness to criticism

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• Institutions actors with political authority
  influence
• Chief Executive
• Legislatures
• Courts
• Other governmental agencies
• Other levels of government
• Interest groups (client groups, constituency
  groups
• Professional associations
• News/media
• Public opinion
• Individual citizens with requests for services

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• Conflicting values ? Challenges to public managers

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Leadership, Managerial Roles Organizational
Culture
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Dispute

• Inborn (Trait Theories)
• Identify traits of effective leaders, ex. height,
  intelligence, enthusiasm, persistence
• Learned trait

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• Definition of leadership
• Executive
• Managerial
• Supervisory
• Informal leadership

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• General definition (Lundstedt 1965)
• ? leadership involves influencing the behavior
  of others in any group or organization, setting
  goals, formulating paths to those goals, and
  creating social norms in the group

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Three levels of leadership in Bureaus

• Executives
• ? establish bureaus structure (including
  positions filled by managers and supervisors
• ? maintain general view of the bureau and its
  place within political envi
• ? Interpret political statements of intentions
  (unclear contradictory) into rational goals
  policies
• ? Create environment that encourage goal
  achievement
• ? close attention to org environment (take
  advantage of opportunity protect org from
  threats

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• manager
• ? depend on rules regulations that define their
  power over others
• ? interpret org goals (set by executives) in
  concrete manner (into structure, procedure, tasks
• ? often pulled by superiors subordinates
• ? focus on how org can be best organized to
  achieve the overall goals established by
  executives

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• Supervisor
• ? focus on motivation, productivity,
  interpersonal relations
• ? work directly with production process
• ? protect subordinates from political pressure

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• Informal leadership
• ? have no official leadership positions
• ? need to understand informal leadership
  phenomenon along with formal one

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• Definition of leadership ? two common elements
• Group phenomenon ? 2 or more people must be
  involved
• Influence process

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• Influence
• ? flow from leaders to followers
• ? Followers grant the leadership role
  to leader
• ? leaders rallying people together and
  motivating them to achieve some common goals

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Influence Tactics (Yukl 1994)

• Rational Persuasion
• Inspirational Appeals
• Consultation
• Ingratiation
• Personal Appeals
• Exchange
• Coalition Tactics
• Legitimating Tactics
• Pressure

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• Authority ? rational basis of power
• Rational side of org ? what an org should do
  according to the official, formal dictates of org
• Political side of organization ? what
  organizations actually do

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Authority

• the rationally based formal right to make
  decisions and influence behavior to implement
  decisions based on formal organizational
  relationships

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• Authority a right determined by an obligation
• Authority is solely associated with formal org,
  with formal sanction or approval from society

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Forms of authority

• Managerial authority
• Staff authority
• Situational authority
• Operative authority

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Managerial Authority

• Managers are responsible for acquiring,
  deploying, controlling resources needed to
  accomplish objectives
• Rights to choose among alternatives
• The right to enforce those choices based on
  official position
• Principle of parity of authority and
  responsibility ? Balance between responsibility
  authority

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Staff Authority

• Suggestions recommendations about the solutions
  to problems, procedure, or improvements
• Right to recommend
• Right to suggest
• Right to advise
• Right to attempt to exert influence to gain
  acceptance for ideas
• Ex. TQM, suggestion boxes, employee empowerment,
  decentralizing org.

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Situational Authority

• Hybrid authority
• Contains both managerial and staff authority
• Delegated by managers to a staff expert

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Operative Authority

• All members have this authority
• ? make certain decisions about how, in what
  order, which tools they carry out their tasks
• ? right to work without undue supervision

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Power

• the ability to impose ones will on others
• the ability of one person to affect the
  behavior of someone else in a desired way
• Based on factors such as knowledge, authority,
  information, personality, resource control

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• Authority ? simple power associated with formal
  organization
• Power ? influence that does not necessarily
  depend on formal organizational recognition
• Example

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Two Perspectives on Power

• The French and Raven Power Typology ? individual
  bases of power
• Dependency, Critical Contingencies, and Power ?
  how individuals, groups, or departments gain
  power through dependency relationships

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French Raven Power Typology

• Sources potency of power in org
• Rational/legal power
• Reward Power
• Coercive power
• Referent power
• Charismatic power
• Expert power

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Dependency, Critical Contingencies, and Power

• Power through control of resources
• Power through solving critical or strategic
  contingencies
• Level of substitutability
• Power and location in the org
• Power and position in the org

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How to assess power ?

• Determine by sources or origin of power ?
  judgment about how much of particular power a
  person/department possesses
• Determine by consequences of decisions made by
  various actors
• Determine by power symbols ? larger office,
  luxurious furniture, more expensive company cars
• Representational indicators of power ?
  memberships on influential boards or committees

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• The use of power in organization
• Effort ? energy ingenuity? to fill power
  vacuums
• Control of information flows
• Dominant coalitions ? group holding extensive
  power authority that may be separate from
  formal power

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• Organizational politics (Pfeffer)
• those activities taken within organizations to
  acquire, develop, and use power and other
  resources to obtain ones preferred outcomes in a
  situation in which there is uncertainty or a lack
  of consensus about choice

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Executive leadership

• Most important ? influence ? skillful playing of
  political game ? power
• Administrative conservators
• Preserve institution
• Improve institution
• what is political climate?
• what is the resource base?
• what is the potential for mobilizing support for
  the program?

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• Four functions for executive leadership
  (Selznick)
• The creative task of setting goals
• The capacity to build policy into an
  organizations social structure
• Maintaining values and institutional identity
• Reconciling the struggle among competing interests

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The Managers

• in the middle
• Traits (Stogdill 1981)
• Capacity? intelligence, alertness, verbal
  facility, originality, judgment
• Achievement ? scholarship, knowledge
• Responsibility ?dependability, initiative,
  persistence, aggressiveness, self-confidence
• Participation ? activity, sociability,
  cooperation, adaptability, humor
• Status ? Socioeconomic position, popularity
• Situation ? mental level, status, skills, needs
  and interests of followers, objectives to be
  achieved

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Values held by successful managers

• Support ? understanding, kindness, considerate
• Conformity ? follow regulation, doing what is
  accepted, proper, socially correct
• Recognition ? attracting favorable attention
  being admired, looked up to
• Independence ? free to make decision
• Benevolence ? generous, helping and sharing with
  those who are less fortunate
• Leadership ? have authority over people

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Managerial roles

• Figurehead role (also executives)
• Leader ole
• Liaison role ? web, network of relations
• Monitor role ? problem, opportunity
• Disseminator role ? interpret info passing on
  to sub
• Spokesperson role
• Entrepreneur role
• Disturbance-handler role
• Resource-allocator role
• Negotiator role

92
Managerial characteristic (Mintzberg)

• Work pace ? no break, grueling pace, long hours
• Activity duration variation ? engage in wide
  variety of activities
• Action rather than reflection ? gravitate toward
  active aspects of their jobs
• Communication media usage ? written messages,
  scheduled meetings, unscheduled meetings,
  observational tours, telephone messages

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The Supervisors

• getting the work done
• Three major focuses
• Production
• Maintenance of individual morale
• Maintenance of group cohesiveness

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• Supervisory behavior (Bass 1990)
• Consideration ? extent to which a leader shows
  concern for the welfare of the other members of
  the group, appreciation of good work, stress
  importance of job satisfaction
• Initiation of structure ? extent to which a
  leader initiates activities in the group,
  organizes it, defines the way work is to be
  done

95
Path-Goal Theory of Leadership

• Effective leaders increase motivation and
  satisfaction among subordinates when they help
  them pursue important goals
• Leaders help subordinates to see the goals
• The paths to achieve those goals
• How to follow those paths effectively
• Show the values of outcomes
• Using appropriate coaching and directing
• Removing barriers and frustrations to those paths

96
House Mitchells 4 leadership styles

• Directive ? Leaders give specific directions and
  expectations
• Supportive ? stress on encouraging, sympathetic
  relations with subordinates
• Achievement-oriented ? leaders set high goals and
  high expectations for subordinates performance
  and responsibility
• Participative ? leaders encourage subordinates to
  suggest opinions and suggestions

97

• Directive leadership
• ? good for ambiguous task
• ? bad when task is well structured and clear
• Supportive leadership
• ? good when tasks are frustrating and stressful
• ? bad when groups or other parts of org already
  provide plenty of encouragement
• Achievement-oriented leadership
• ? good for tasks toward ambitious goals
• Participative leadership
• ? good for ambiguous task that subordinates
  feel their self-esteem is at stake
• ? participation allows them to influence
  decisions and work out solutions

98
Leader-Member Exchange Theory (LMX)

• Dyadic relationships
• between a leader and individual subordinates
• On development of low-exchange and hi-exchange
  relationships
• Low-exchange relationships
• ? little mutual influence between the leader and
  subordinate
• ? subordinate follows formal role requirements
• ? receive standard benefit (salary)
• High exchange relationships
• ? leader establishes with a set of trusted
  subordinates
• ? mutual influence relations
• ? subordinates receive benefits in the form of
  more interesting assignments and participation in
  important decisions
• ? leaders expectation of hard work, loyalty,
  more responsibility

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Transformational Leadership