Issues In Public Administration

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UNIVERSITY OF GHANA BUSINESS SCHOOL DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & HEALTH SERVICES MGT SECOND SEMESTER, 2014/2015 ACADEMIC YEAR (PH.D IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, YEAR 1) COURSE TITLE: ISSUES IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION (PAHS 742) SEMINAR QUESTION What is public management? Is it a genuinely new area of academic inquiry, or is it merely an old subject that is being dusted off and recycled? Explain carefully the relationship between the research field of “public administration” and that of “public management”. Is the latter a synonym for the former? Is it a particular kind of specialization within public administration? Does it designate a coherent theoretical and / or methodological approach? In answering these questions, be sure to ground…show more content…
This connotes the execution of public laws in a bureaucratic manner to management which tends to emphasize on results and flexibility. The shift from an administrative state to a management state in public administration reflects scholarly works of New Public Management theorists. For many theorists, it suggests a shift in emphasis from policy making to management skills, from a stress on process to a stress on output, from orderly hierarchies to a more competitive basis for providing public services, from fared to variable pay and from a uniform and inclusive public service to a variant structure with more emphasis on contract provision, are themes (Aucoin, 1990; Hood, 1991; Pollitt, 1993) According to Christopher Hood (1995) a number of countries in the 1980’s were moving towards adoption of the New Public Management (NPM). Central to this change in modes of public management was a shift towards “accountingization” (a term coined by Power Laughlin, (1992). This development was part of a broader shift in received doctrines of public accountability and public administration at the same time, accounting changes formed an important part of the assault on the progressive-era models of public accountability (Hal & Wettenhall,…show more content…
Unbundling of the Public sector ( Ps) into corporatized units organized by product Make units manageable, and focus blame; split provision and production to create anti-waste lobby Belief in the uniform and inclusive PS to avoid overlaps in accountability More contract-based competitive provision, with internal markets and term contracts Rivalry as the key to lower costs and better standards; contracts as the key to explicating performance Unspecified employment contracts, open-ended provision, linking of purchase, provision, production, to cut transaction cost Stress on private sector styles of management practice Need to apply proven private sector management tools in the public sector Stress on PS ethic fixed pay and hiring rules, model employer Orientation centralized personnel structure, jobs for life More stress on discipline and frugality in resource Use Need to cut direct costs, raise labour discipline, do more with less Stable base budget and establishment norms, minimum standards, union More emphasis on visible hands-on top management Accountability requires clear assignment of responsibility not diffusion of power Paramount stress on policy skills and rules, not active

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