The Cultures of Public Organizations

"Classical Organizational Theory deals with the 'systematic processes necessary to make bureaucracy more efficient and effective.' Name three scholars that are credited with the development of classical organization thought that most correctly fit into this definition of Classical Organizational Theory. What were the basic arguments articulated by each in their contributions to the development of Classical Organizational Theory?"

“Organisations need strong culture”. Consider this statement in relation to how we understand and make sense of culture in the post-bureaucratic era.

I understand the seven core public sector values apply to every public sector employee. By using these values to guide my day-to-day work practices and relationships, I know that I will contribute to the wellbeing of others and the organisation. With over twenty-five years working in Education both Australia and international schools in different countries, I understand the factors that potentially can marginalise students and colleagues and consequently always make inclusive practices a priority. Similarly, working to an agreed framework of guiding values and principles .

Public Administration is a fairly new concept in comparison to other disciplines. It is a combination of at least 10 different humanities, and has become an important staple within federal, state and local governments/organizations. The Columbia and Challenger tragedies that befell the NASA space program allow for a great opportunity to apply Public Administration concepts to the real world. There were many issues that surrounded each accident and it’s not possible to place a definitive blame on anyone. It’s important to recognize the various theories within Public Administration that help explain the way an organization is run. The theory that organizations should ignore their constituency as well as abstain from voicing their concerns with those in politics undermines the idea of democracy and allows for these agencies to neglect their purpose as a societal vanguard.

Within organizations, large and small, there exists a sense of identity among its members that separates it from other organizations. This sense of identity is known as organizational culture. All over, managers seek to influence and change this into something that can be beneficial for the organization. In his article, “The Six Levers for Managing Organizational Culture”, Professor David W. Young defines the different elements that can influence and change the culture within the organization and how the reader can use these “levers” to their advantage. While the author does present a decent explanation for changing the culture of an organization, he leaves many questions unanswered that leaves his argument incomplete.

According to Mclean and Marshall (1993) organisational culture is defined as the collection of traditions, values, policies, beliefs and attitudes that contribute a pervasive context for everything we do and think in an organisation. (ie) this means that these factors actually determine how we think as well as act and react not only to people from within the same organisation but also to anybody on the outside who has some sort of interaction with the organisation. As can be seen with the part-structure in Figure 1, this organisation (WHD) has various levels of management. There is quite

The issue of political involvement for Bureaucratic Administrators lies with the pressure of remaining neutral in their goals, agendas and passions. Many people that there is a distinct line drawn for these administrators to keep politics out of their work. Although, neutrality must be upheld as the administrators work to meet their outlined goals, those goals can only be met through some type of political involvement. The chapter by Milakovich outlines the overarching purpose for public administration to bridge the gap between action and government. This connection is best displayed in the ever-changing role that public administration has played in United States history. When discussing the seven principles for public administration, “Gulick

Public services and public sector organisations, including voluntary sector, are all funded by the central government, which has a significant role to play. Many of the benefits of local transformation will accrue to central government departments such as the Department for Work and Pensions and Ministry of Justice. Furthermore, these departments need to consider the outcomes they want to achieve and the price they are willing to pay for them if localities take the lead. The Budget sets out an opportunity for government to build on the economic devolution achieved so far and focus on how public services could be commissioned and delivered locally to achieve better outcomes (Smith, 2015).

Currently the organizational culture and structure are in discord, resulting in role conflict and ambiguity, impacting the organizational performance. Janicijevic (2013) concludes:

In Understanding and Managing Public organizations, Hal G. Rainey states, “Blurring of the sectors” (Rainey,2014, pg. 57). Rainey basically says that private, public and nonprofit organizations are interweaved. Many public agencies are similar to private agencies. Private, public organizations provide services and goods within the United States and around the world. These agencies are mostly owned and operated by the government or public sector. These public sectors or government agencies provide loans to college students, people who want to buy a home, and farmers who own farms and banks. These organizations are owned and guided by the government.They operated as a private sector and as a result they generate their own revenue. Rainey

In the Deepwarter Horizon case, the workers from BP and Transocean discussed issues and made decisions jointly. Both of the companies ignored signs of trouble which led to catastrophic problems. Moreover, it is of my opinion the companies applied the garbage can model of decision making. Furthermore, the garbage can model suggest the organizations operate on a basis of inconsistent and imprecise preferences (). In addition, the organizations process are not often understood by workers, and they often work by trial and error (). More importantly, the garbage can model can sometimes result in unsuspected problems in which satisfactory solutions weren’t present ().

In order to prevent future failures, NASA must acknowledge the level of difficulty in addressing particular issues. One of the issues concerning the least preventable factors is the craft issue regarding NASA officials’ individual judgments and their influence on decision-making. In this situation, judgments and decisions were made to ignore the agency’s advisors’ warnings about a threat to safety (Hill & Lynn, 2009, p. 56). Some might say that passing bad judgment is avoidable. However, predicting and preventing officials from making incorrect judgments and decisions is difficult. The first reason being the subjectivity surrounding the individual official’s decision making as it depends on their “skills, intuitions, inclination and values”

This paper will look at eight published articles that explore the issues of policy changes affecting how bureaucracies conduct work in a hostile political environment. This pressure from the political scene tends to make the system slow and non-efficient. The article that this research is based on comes from Charles E. Lidblom bringing this theory to light. His “Muddling through” theory inherently brings new ideas and opinions; six other scholarly sources give a different outlook on his piece agreeing with him or taking a different stance on how political pressure effects bureaucratic decisions. Furthermore, the bureaucrat making the decision of which policy to choose inherently brings his own bias into the decision by sacrificing one thing

Organizational culture: Assumptions that define the organizational goals and products create a powerful restraint on change, especially technological change.

To analyze the transition from traditional to new public administration and its impacts on the image of public servants, as citizens we must clarify the differences between the two. Traditional PA is distinguished by its bureaucratic, slow and inefficient system, low quality of the civil service, and weak performance. During the period of traditional PA, public administration and politics were a dichotomy, two separate entities that work independently of one another. Woodrow Wilson noted that the political atmosphere expanded tremendously and became out of proportion to its skill. To fix this problem, public administration is to be separated from