Public Administration

In the past two decades, the topic public management has taken an increased significance in the theory and practice of public administration.

In few words, it is possible to note a separation between the “older” and “newer” public management.

The older view is that public management is the responsible exercise of administrative discretion.
The newer conception adds to this ‘the craft perspective’, that is, a concern for decisions, actions and outcomes, and for political skill needed to perform effectively in specific managerial roles.

Following Kettl (2000), the “new public management” includes themes “like the productivity of government activities, using economic market or market-like strategies, enhancing attention to citizens as service recipients, decentralizing responsibilities to local governments and to front-line managers, and sharpening accountability for results by focusing more on outputs and outcomes than on processes and structure” (Rainey, 2003).

Differences and similarities between private and public management remain the main question.
How alike or unalike are managing in the public and private sectors?
Can and should government be more business-like?

On one hand, scholars developed the idea that public and private management involve similar skills and techniques. Consequently, the extensive body of ideas and practices relating to corporate success can be applied to the problems of public management.
More, following Barry Bazerman (1987), “all organizations are public”, because all kind of organizations are affected to at least some degree by political authority.

On the other hand, some researchers claim that the public sector needs specific sources of knowledge, specific techniques and specific skills suited to its unique character (Rainey, 1997).

The basic elements of the argument that public and private management are fundamentally different are:
(1) Divergence in term of interests,
(2) Public officials, because they exercise the sovereign power of the state, are necessarily accountable to democratic values rather than to any particular group or material interest,
(3) An equal treatment of persons and rules is necessary.

To conclude, the distinctions between the public and private management be blurred or absent when analysing particular responsibilities, tasks, functions and activities in a particular organization. Nevertheless, the two sectors are constituted to serve different kinds of societal interests, and different skills and values are specifically necessary to serve these different interests.