Political Science and Public Administration (Part 2)Lecture-2: Core Issues in Public Administration

Professor Dr. Mohammad Mohabbat KhanSenior most Professor

University of DhakaDepartment of Public Administration

Dhaka -1000Bangladesh

Organization When two or more people get together

and agree to coordinate their activities in order to achieve their common goals, an organization is born.

There is really no doubt about the present meaning of organization. Its purpose is to create an arrangement of positions and responsibilities through and by means of which an enterprise can carry out its work.

organization can be formulated as follows: a. the responsibilities by means of which the

activities of the enterprise are dispersed among the (managerial, supervisory, and specialist) personnel employed in its service; and

b. the formal interrelations established among the personnel by virtue of such responsibilities.

It must be emphasized that an organization should not be seen as rigid as the term “framework” implies. In reality, almost all organization structures must be occasionally reviewed due to various changes in the external environment of the organization in question.

Moreover, internal changes also occur often times due to the development of various informal relationships.

Hierarchy A hierarchy is an arrangement of items

(objects, names, values, categories, etc.) in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another and with only one "neighbor" above and below each level.

These classifications are made with regard to rank, importance, seniority, power status or authority.

A hierarchy of power is called a power structure. Abstractly, a hierarchy is simply an ordered set or an a cyclic graph.

A hierarchy can link entities either directly or indirectly, and either vertically or horizontally. The only direct links in a hierarchy, in so far as

they are hierarchical, are to one's immediate superior or to one's subordinates, although a system that is largely hierarchical can also incorporate other organizational patterns.

Indirect hierarchical links can extend "vertically" upwards or downwards via multiple links in the same direction, following a path.

All parts of the hierarchy which are not linked vertically to one another nevertheless can be "horizontally" linked through a path by travelling up the hierarchy to find a common direct or indirect superior, and then down again.

This is akin to two co-workers or colleagues; each reports to a common superior, but they have the same relative amount of authority.

Unity of Command Unity of command is a principle of

management stating that each subordinate should report to only one superior.

This principle states that every subordinate should receive orders and be accountable to one and only one superior. If an employee receives orders from more than one superior, it is likely to create confusion and conflict.

Meaning It implies that a sub-ordinate should receive orders & instructions from only one boss.

Nature It is related to the functioning of personnel.

Necessity

It is necessary for fixing responsibility of each subordinate.

Advantage

It avoids conflicts, confusion & chaos.

Result It leads to better superior sub-ordinate relationship.

Power Power is a measure of an individual's potential

to get others to do what he or she wants them to do, as well as to avoid being forced by others to do what he or she does not want to do.

Power is broadly defined as "the capacity to bring about change." It takes many forms, comes from many places, and is measured in many ways. Understanding all the varieties of power is essential if one is to understand who has it, who doesn't, and how those who don't have it can get it.

Types of Power

Five types of power in management are: reward, coercive, legitimate, referent, and expert. (Stojkovic, Kalinich and Klofas,Page 247 chapter 10)

Reward power means an employee believes they are going to get some type of reward for doing his job. The reward could be pay, days off, etc. The employee believes the reward will be coming from the supervisor.

Coercive power is a supervisor intimidating an employee to do the work or his can be fired or demoted.

Legitimate Power when an officer believes that the orders being given are based on rules & regulations & his superior has the right to give such orders.

Referent power is when one person has an attraction somehow to the person giving the power. The individual will basically do anything the person with power says because the attraction is so strong. An example could be a group of teens with one teen just trying to become one of the members of the group and they tell him to jump off a bridge. The outsider is going to do it because he wants to be part of the group due to the attraction the group holds to him.

Expert power is based on one individual believing that another individual has so much expertise in an area that he believes everything that is being told to him. The example used is the client/attorney example.

Span of Control Span of control is a term originating in military

organization theory, but now used more commonly in business management, particularly human resource management. Span of control refers to the number of subordinates a supervisor has.

In the hierarchical business organization of the past it was not uncommon to see average spans of 1 to 10 or even less. That is, one manager supervised ten employees on average. In the 1980s corporate leaders flattened many organizational structures causing average spans to move closer to 1 to 100. That was made possible primarily by the development of inexpensive information technology.

As information technology was developed capable of easing many middle manager tasks – like collecting, manipulating and presenting operational information – upper managers found they could hire fewer middle managers to do more work managing more subordinates for less money.

Factors affecting Span of ControlThese are the factors affecting span of control:

Geographical Location: If the branches of a business are widely dispersed, then the manager will find it difficult to supervise each of them, as such the span of control will be smaller.

Capability of workers: If workers are highly capable, and do not require much supervision and can be left on their own, i.e: Theory Y type of people, need not be supervised much as they are motivated and take initiative to work, as such the span of control will be smaller.

Similarity of task: If the tasks that the subordinates are performing are similar, then the span of control can be wider, as the manager can supervise them all at the same time. However, of course, the capability of the supervisor has to also be taken into consideration.

The first to develop a more general theory of management was Henri Fayol, who had gathered empirical experience during his time as general manager of a coal and steel company, the Commentary-Fourchambault Company.

He was first to add a managerial perspective to the problem of organizational governance. The rationale for defining a strict hierarchy of communication channels is found in the need for vertical integration of activities, imposed by management's need for control and information.

Authority and Responsibility The term “authority” refers to an abstract

concept with both sociological and psychological components. As a child born of a myriad of different social situations which have some rough similarities, no easy definition exists. Of particular concern throughout the literature on the topic is the entanglement of the concepts of authority, power, and legitimacy.

This is a concern not only in the abstract, but also in the concrete because scholars themselves are often guilty of entangling them.

Weber on AuthorityMax Weber, in his sociological work, identified and distinguished three types of legitimate domination, that have sometimes been rendered in English translation as types of authority, because domination isn't seen as a political concept in the first place.

The first type discussed by Weber is rational-legal authority. It is that form of authority which depends for its legitimacy on formal rules and established laws of the state, which are usually written down and are often very complex.

The second type of authority is traditional authority, which derives from long-established customs, habits and social structures. When power passes from one generation to another, then it is known as traditional authority.

The third form of authority is charismatic authority. Here, the charisma of the individual or the leader plays an important role. Charismatic authority is that authority which is derived from "the gift of grace" or when the leader claims that his authority is derived from a "higher power" (e.g. God or natural law or rights) or "inspiration", that is superior to both the validity of traditional and rational-legal authority and followers accept this and are willing to follow this higher or inspired authority, in the place of the authority that they have hitherto been following.

Responsibility is the obligation to accomplish the goals related to the position and the organization.

Managers, no matter at what level of the organization, typically have the same basic responsibilities when it comes to managing the work force: direct employees toward objectives, oversee the work effort of employees, deal with immediate problems, and report on the progress of work to their superiors.

Managers' primary responsibilities are to examine tasks, problems, or opportunities in relationship to the organization's short-and long-range goals.

They must be quick to identify areas of potential problems, continually search for solutions, and be alert to new opportunities and ways to take advantage of the best ones.

How effectively goals and objectives are accomplished depends on how well the organization goals are broken down into jobs and assignments and how well these are identified and communicated throughout the organization.

Leadership Leadership has been described as the “process of social

influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”.

Definitions more inclusive of followers have also

emerged. Alan Keith of Genentech states that, "Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.“

According to Ken "SKC" Ogbonnia, "effective leadership is the ability to successfully integrate and maximize available resources within the internal and external environment for the attainment of organizational or societal goals."

Leadership remains one of the most relevant aspects of the organizational context. However, defining leadership has been challenging and definitions can vary depending on the situation.

According to Ann Marie E. McSwain, “leadership is about capacity: the capacity of leaders to listen and observe, to use their expertise as a starting point to encourage dialogue between all levels of decision-making, to establish processes and transparency in decision-making, to articulate their own values and visions clearly but not impose them.

Leadership is about setting and not just reacting to agendas, identifying problems, and initiating change that makes for substantive improvement rather than managing change.”

The Two Most Important Keys to Effective Leadership

According to a study by the Hay Group, a global management consultancy, there are 75 key components of employee satisfaction (Lamb, McKee, 2004). They found that: Trust and confidence in top leadership is

the single most reliable predictor of employee satisfaction in an organization.

Effective communication by leadership in three critical areas was the key to winning organizational trust and confidence: Helping employees understand the

organization's overall business strategy. Helping employees understand how they

contribute to achieving key business objectives.

Sharing information with employees on both how the company is doing and how an employee's own division is doing - relative to strategic business objectives.

Centralization and Decentralization

Centralization is said to be a process where the concentration of decision making is in a few hands. All the important decisions and actions at the lower level, all subjects and actions at the lower level are subject to the approval of top management. According to Allen, “centralization” is the systematic and consistent reservation of authority at central points in the organization. The implication of centralization can be :-

Reservation of decision making power at the top level.

Reservation of operating authority with the middle level managers.

Reservation of operation at lower level at the directions of the top level.

Under centralization, the important and key decisions are taken by the top management and the other levels are implementations as per the directions of the top level.

For example, in a business concern, the father & son being the owners decide about the important matters and all the rest of functions like product, finance, marketing, personnel, are carried out by the department heads and they have to act as per instruction and orders of the two individuals. Therefore, in this case, decision making power remain in the hands of father & son.

On the other hand, decentralization is a systematic delegation of authority at all levels of management and in all of the organization. In a decentralization concern, authority is retained by the top management for taking major decisions and framing policies concerning the whole concern. Rest of the authority may be delegated to the middle level and lower level of management.

The degree of centralization and decentralization will depend upon the amount of authority delegated to the lowest level. According to Allen, “decentralization refers to the systematic effort to delegate to the lowest level of authority except that which can be controlled and exercised at central points”.

Decentralization is not the same as delegation. In fact, decentralization is all extension of delegation. Decentralization pattern is wider is scope and the authorities are diffused to the lowest most level of management. Delegation of authority is a complete process and takes place from one person to another. While decentralization is complete only when fullest possible delegation has taken place. For example, the general manager of a company is responsible for receiving the leave application for the whole of the concern.

The general manager delegates this work to the personnel manager who is now responsible for receiving the leave applicants. In this situation delegation of authority has taken place. On the other hand, on the request of the personnel manager ,if the general manager delegates this power to all the departmental heads at all level, in this situation decentralization has taken place.

There is a saying that “Everything that increases the role of subordinates is decentralization and that decreases the role is centralization”. Decentralization is wider in scope and the subordinate’s responsibility increases in this case. On the other hand, in delegation the managers remain answerable even for the acts of subordinates to their superiors.

Supervision There are several interpretations of the term

"supervision", but typically supervision is the activity carried out by supervisors to oversee the productivity and progress of employees who report directly to the supervisors.

For example, first-level supervisors supervise entry-level employees. Depending on the size of the organization, middle-managers supervise first-level supervisors, chief executives supervise middle-managers, etc.

Supervision is a management activity and supervisors have a management role in the organization.

Occasionally, writers will interchange "leadership" and "supervision". Both activities are closely related. Supervision requires leadership. Leadership does not necessarily have to involve supervision.

Supervision of a group of employees often includes

1. Conducting basic management skills (decision making, problem solving, planning, delegation and meeting management)

2. Organizing their department and teams3. Noticing the need for and designing new job

roles in the group4. Hiring new employees5. Training new employees 6. Employee performance management (setting

goals, observing and giving feedback, addressing performance issues, firing employees, etc.)

7. Conforming to personnel policies and other internal regulations

Line and Staff Organizational structure involves, in

addition to the task of organizational boundary considerations, the designation of jobs within an organization and the relationships among those jobs.

There are numerous ways to structure jobs within an organization, but two of the most basic forms include simple line structures and line-and-staff structures.

In a line organization, top management has complete control, and the chain of command is clear and simple. Examples of line organizations are small businesses in which the top manager, often the owner, is positioned at the top of the organizational structure and has clear "lines" of distinction between him and his subordinates.

Staff positions serve the organization by indirectly supporting line functions. Staff positions consist of staff personnel and staff managers. Staff personnel use their technical expertise to assist line personnel and aid top management in various business activities. Staff managers provide support, advice, and knowledge to other individuals in the chain of command.

Decision Making

Decision making can be regarded as an outcome of mental processes (cognitive process) leading to the selection of a course of action among several alternatives.

Every decision making process produces a final choice. The output can be an action or an opinion of choice.

Models of Decision-making            There is no right or wrong way to make decisions. Sometimes cautious deliberation is the best path; at other times risks are required. But scholars speak about two broad categories of models of decision-making: rational and non-rational models.           

Rational decisions are choices based on judgment of preferences and outcomes. They do not always turn out best and they do not eliminate the possibility of failure. Sometimes the goal is so important that it is rational to choose an option with little promise of payoff. Opting for experimental surgery is a rational choice over a life of pain.

In non-rational models choices do not result from the deliberate balancing of pros and cons. These models share the assumption that the mix of rules and participants shape choices, and that decisions result from the varying (though not necessarily accidental) mix of ingredients. Most of governmental decisions are within these models. 

Taken to extremes, rational models reduce human judgment to computation, and non-rational models portray decision outcomes as the result of forces beyond individual control.

Both rational and non-rational models of the decision process are products of value-neutral social science. Values enter rational decision models only in the form of preferences, but they are generally defined in terms of self-interest. An emerging view of decision-making places a stronger emphasis on decisions as value statements.