denhardt97063_0495097063_02.01_chapter01

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Theories of Public Organization, Fifth EditionRobert B. Denhardt

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1

Learning About Public

Organizations

Dwight Waldos appraisal of the importance of public organizations in ourdaily lives is even more relevant today than when it was written over fiftyyears ago (Waldo, 1955). During that time, public organizations at the federal,state, and local levels have grown tremendously, to the point that today over23 million people are employed by government in this country. More important,the range and complexity of the issues addressed by government agencies havebeen extended far beyond what we might have envisioned even a few years ago.Because of the serious impact public organizations have on our lives, when we talkabout administration, as Waldo says, we had better be intelligent.

But, as Chester Barnard points out, we must also maintain a sense of the quality oforganizational life. Although we often think of the public bureaucracy as an impersonalmechanism, in fact, behind each of our encounters with public organizations lies alengthy and complex chain of human events, understandings, and behaviors developedin the everyday lives of people just like us. Organizations are indeed the products ofindividual human actionsactions with special meanings and significance to those whoact. The allegedly impersonal organization is the backdrop for a very personal world.

For this reason, public organizations may look quite different, depending onour particular perspective. As an example, we often talk about the endless maze ofconfusion and red tape that seems to characterize public organizations. Certainagencies, despite their alleged interest in efficiency and service, seem designed toprevent satisfactory solutions to our problems. On the one hand, the bureaucracymay seem to be so routinized as to be uncaring; on the other, it may seem soarbitrary as to be cruel. Consequently, we should not be surprised that manyAmericans have a rather low opinion of public bureaucracy.

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But this picture changes as we become more familiar with the bureaucracy andthe people who inhabit it. These individuals are, for the most part, highly concernedand competent, working to make a living and seeking to deal effectively with thecomplex issues they face. For most, the old notion of public service is not dead.Working for the government is not just another job; it is a chance to participate insolving difficult public problems. It is the real world, in which people experiencepain and pride, joy and disappointment. It is a very personal place.

In one sense, this book is concerned with what it means to be intelligentabout public organizations, but it is also concerned with how our knowledge maybe used to deal compassionately with human problems. We will be concernedwith a fairly basic set of questions: How can we develop a better and moresystematic understanding of public organizations? What do we need to know inorder to make public organizations more responsive? How can we employ theknowledge we have gained so as to improve the quality of our lives?

T H E A C Q U I S I T I O N O F K N O W L E D G E

These questions have practical as well as theoretical importance. Any admin-istrative practitioner must constantly (though not necessarily consciously) askwhat knowledge can be generated and how it can be applied. What do I need toknow about this organization, how can I find out, and how can I use thisinformation? In all cases, the manager must make certain choices about theaccumulation of knowledge, then make decisions and take actions based on thatknowledge. Indeed, one might argue that issues of knowledge acquisition lie atthe heart of administration.

Of course, people gain knowledge in many ways. Our understanding ofpublic organizations is clearly influenced by events that occur even before weregularly encounter those organizations. Our experiences in the family teach usmuch about power, authority, and communication, while our experiences inchurch and in school present us with information about more structured orga-nizations. By the time we begin to deal with major public organizations, either asmembers or as clients, we have been thoroughly socialized in terms of some basicpatterns of behavior and action. Nevertheless, there is still a great deal of infor-mation we must acquire and a number of different ways in which we can acquireit. We can depend on rumor or hearsay, we can investigate the organizations pastpractices, we can listen and learn from the advice of others in the organization, orwe can let ourselves be guided by efficiency experts and organization develop-ment specialists.

Deriving Theory from Practice

In each of these ways, we are constructing our own personal approach to ortheory of public organization; we are seeking explanations or understanding that

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will allow us systematically to view public organizations, their members, and theirclients. The body of observations and evaluations we make may be said toconstitute implicit theories of public organizations, in the sense that althoughthey may rarely be articulated or even consciously considered, they constitute aset of propositions about the way in which public organizations work. Mostimportant, these theories do not exist apart from practice; they are integrallyrelated to the way we act as members or clients of public agencies. Our everyaction occurs within the framework of the theories we hold, or, more precisely, asan expression of our theoretical positions. In the field of action, theory andpractice are one. This statement seems simple enough, but exactly the oppositecharacterization, that theory and practice are disconnected, is in fact the onemore frequently heard in contemporary discussions of public administration.Administrative practitioners often complain that theorists, from the FoundingFathers to present-day academics, live and work in ivory towers so distant fromthe world of practice that their principles and pronouncements hardly correspondto life in the real world. Meanwhile, academicians, even those most concernedwith the relevance of administrative studies, complain that practitioners in publicagencies are so concerned with the nuts and bolts of administration that they failto maintain a theoretical overview. The gulf between theory and practice seemstoo great to bridge.

Far more than a contest between academicians and practitioners is at stakehere; rather, as we will see, the theory-practice issue is central to the question ofdeveloping an intelligent and compassionate approach to public organizations.For this reason, a central aim of this book is to develop an understanding of publicorganizations that will enable us to integrate theory and practice, reflection andaction. To that end, subsequent chapters present an overview of those theories ofthe individual, the organization, and society that have been proposed as guide-lines for explaining the actions of public organizations; a specific question will behow those theories and the arguments on which they have been built inform ourown processes of theory buildingprocesses that lead to our implicit theories ofadministration. In the course of reviewing these works, the relationship betweentheory and practice is critically examined, and this relationship is ultimatelyreconstructed around the concept of personal action.

Different Approaches: Case 1

We have indicated that both academicians and practitioners have sought to solvethe problem of knowledge acquisition in public administration. In order tounderstand in a practical manner the issues they have raised, we will examine twocases that illustrate some of the central topics in public administration theory. In

The central aim of this book is to develop an understanding of public organizationsthat will enable us to integrate theory and practice, reflection and action.

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each case, you might begin by asking how you as an observer would characterizethe various actors and how you would analyze their relationships with oneanother. What kind of information (complete or incomplete, objective or sub-jective, and so on) do you have available? (Typically, students reviewing cases suchas these comment that they need more information, that the case did not tellthem enough. But, of course, those involved would say the same thing; it justseems that there is never enough information.) Does your asking for moreinformation suggest that you hold a certain view of organizations that would bemade more complete with the addition of this information? If your questionsreflect a set of assumptions about life in public organizations, how would youcharacterize those assumptions?

You might then consider the case from the standpoint of those involved. Tryto understand, from their point of view, exactly what was taking place. Specif-ically, you might try to reconstruct their analysis of the situation. On whatknowledge or understanding of organizational life did they act? What informationdid they have? What information did they lack? How would they have charac-terized their general approach to life in public organizations? What expectationsabout human behavior did they hold? How did they see the primary tasks of theirorganization? What was their understanding of the role of government agenciesand those working in such agencies? What was the relationship between theirframe of reference and their behavior?

Our first case illustrates the relationship between the way we view organ-izational life and the way we act in public organizations. Ken Welch was asummer intern in the management services division of a large federal installation.During his three-month assignment, Ken was to undertake a variety of projectsrelated to management concerns in the various laboratories at the center. Themanagement services division was part of the personnel department, but per-sonnel in the division often acted as troubleshooters for top management, so theunit enjoyed considerable prestige within the department and, correspondingly,received special attention from its director.

After a period of about two weeks, during which Ken was given a generalintroduction to the work of the division, the department, and the center, RickArnold, one of the permanent analysts, asked Ken to help him with a study of therecruitment process in one of the computer laboratories. This was exactly thekind of project Ken had hoped would grow out of his summer experience, and hejumped at the opportunity to become involved. He was especially pleased thatRick, who was clearly one of the favorites of the divisions chief and was jokinglybut respectfully known as Superanalyst, had asked for his help. In addition togaining some experience himself, Ken would have the opportunity to watch ahigh-powered management analyst at work. Moreover, since it was clear thatRick had the ear of the divisions chief, there were possibilities for at leastobserving some of the interactions at that level, perhaps even participating inmeetings at the highest levels of the centers management. All in all, it was anattractive assignment, one on which Ken immediately began to work.

As it turned out, however, Ken could not do a great deal. Since Rick was theprincipal analyst, he clearly wanted to take the lead in this project, something that

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seemed perfectly appropriate to Ken. But because Rick had several other ongoingprojects, there were considerable periods in which Ken found himself with littleto do on the recruitment project. He was therefore more than happy to help outwhen Eddie Barth, one of the older members of the staff, asked if Ken wouldhelp him put together some organizational charts requested by top management.Eddie was one of a small group of technicians who had formed one of the twounits brought together several years before to form the management servicesdivision. Ken soon discovered that the construction of an organizational chart,especially in the hands of these technicians, became a highly specialized process,involving not only endless approvals but also complicated problems of graphicdesign and reproduction far beyond what might be imagined. Ken was certainlyless interested in this work than in the more human problems he encountered inthe recruitment project, but Eddie had always been cordial and seemed to behappy to have some help. So Ken drew charts. After a couple of weeks of workingon the two projects, Ken began to receive signals that all was not well with hiswork. Another intern in the office overheard a conversation in the halls about theoverly energetic interns who had been hired. One of the secretaries commentedthat she hoped Ken could stand the heat. Since Ken felt neither overly energeticnor under any heat, these comments were curious. Maybe they were talkingabout someone else, he thought.

A few days later, however, Ken was asked to come to Jim Piersons office.Jim, another of the older members of the staff, who, Ken thought, had evenheaded the technical unit, had remained rather distant, although not unpleasant,during Kens first weeks at the center. While others had been quite friendly,inviting Ken to parties and asking him to join the personnel departments softballteam, Jim had seemed somewhat aloof. But then Ken and Jim had very littlecontact on the job, so maybe, Ken reasoned, it was not so strange after all. Kensaw the meeting as a friendly gesture on Jims part and looked forward to gettingbetter acquainted. Any hopes of a friendly conversation, however, were imme-diately dispelled: as soon as Ken arrived, Jim began a lecture on how to manageones time, specifically pointing out that taking on too many projects meant thatnone would be well done. Although there were no specifics, Jim was clearlyreferring to the two projects on which Ken had been working.

Ken was stunned by the meeting. No one had in any way questioned thequality of his work. There were no time conflicts between the two projects. Andeven if there had been, Ken wondered why Jim would take it on himself todeliver such a reprimand. Later that afternoon, Ken shared his conversation withthe other intern, who commented that Jim had always felt angered that, when thetwo units were brought together, he was not made director. Ken hinted at thecontroversy the next day in a conversation with Rick but received only a casualremark about the out-of-date members of the division. Ken began to feel thathe was a pawn in some sort of office power struggle and immediately resolved totry to get out of the middle. As soon as he had an opportunity to see the divisionchief, he explained the whole situation, including his feeling that no real prob-lems existed and that he was being used. The chief listened carefully but offeredno real suggestions. He said he would keep an eye on the situation.



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Later in the week, at a beer-drinking session after a softball game, the directorof the department of personnel asked how the internship was going. In theensuing conversation, Ken told him what had happened. The director launchedinto a long discourse on the difficulties he had experienced in reorganizing unitswithin his department. But he also pointed out how the combination of the twounits into the division had decreased his span of control and made the operationof the department considerably easier. It was clear that he preferred the moreanalytical approach to management services represented by the chief and bySuperanalyst. In part, he said that the reorganization had buried one of his mainproblems, or, Ken thought later, maybe he said it would do so soon.

This case illustrates a wide range of issues confronting those who wish toknow more about public organizations. What motivates people working in publicorganizations? How can we explain faulty patterns of communication in publicagencies? How can we best understand the relationship between bureaucraciesand bureaucrats? How can we cope with, or perhaps even direct, organizationalchange? But even more important for our purposes, this case indicates the centralrole of the acquisition of knowledge as the basis of our actions. Each of thepersons involved here was faced with the problem of accumulating knowledgeabout the specific circumstances; then he had to determine how that informationmight fit into (or require him to modify) his own frame of reference, his ownimplicit theories about how people and organizations behave. Each of thesepersons had to resolve three basic questions about his understanding of publicorganizations: (1) What knowledge is needed as a basis for action? (2) What arethe best possible sources of that knowledge? (3) How can that knowledge beapplied to the situation at hand? Only after resolving these questions (at leastimplicitly) was each person able to act.

Take Ken Welch, the central character in this case, as an example. Among themany categories that Ken might have used to help him understand what washappening in this situation, Ken chose to emphasize those relating to power andauthority. His concern (perhaps even obsession) with power and authority pro-vided a special lens through which he viewed the world, a lens that highlightedsome events and filtered out others. After obtaining a certain amount of infor-mation, Ken concluded that he was a pawn in an office power struggle andtried to work things out by appealing to those who had authority in theorganization. If, on the other hand, Ken had focused on other topicsforexample, the breakdowns in communication that often occur in complexorganizations despite attempts at cooperationhe would have acted quite dif-ferently, probably trying to discover the cause of the confusion and seeking towork out a more effective relationship with his fellow workers. In any case, it isclear that Kens own perspective on organizational life, his own implicit theory oforganization, was crucial in directing his actions.

Different Approaches: Case 2

Let us examine another case, one that illustrates again the connection betweenthe theories people hold and the actions they take, but one that also illustrates

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several other themes central to the study of public organizations. John Taylor andCarol Langley worked for a local community development agency. Following arather massive reorganization of the agency, in which a number of new programswere taken on, John was asked to supervise a new housing-loan program, andCarol was asked to assist him. The program was designed to provide low-interestloans to help people rehabilitate housing in certain parts of the city. AlthoughJohn and Carol had experience in related areas, neither was familiar with thisparticular program. To make matters worse, seminars to provide help in estab-lishing such programs had been held some months earlier. John and Carol weresimply given a manual and told to begin.

The program involved a number of new activities and took considerable timeto set up. For example, it was necessary to train new housing inspectors, whowould coordinate their activities with those provided by the city, and relationshipshad to be established with the many agencies that would provide informationabout the applicants being processed.

John soon began receiving considerable pressure to complete the processingof the first group of applications within a very short time. For one thing, the firstgroup of applicants consisted of about forty people who had originally applied forother programs but had been turned down. Since their applications had been onfile in the agency for as long as a year, they were eager to have their requestsprocessed quickly. Initial visits and phone calls from several of the applicants madeJohn quite aware of their feelings. In addition, however, John knew that thisparticular loan program would have a significant impact on the community andthat, consequently, his doing an efficient job under these difficult circumstanceswould be important to the agency and in turn important to his own future ingovernment service.

Carol recognized the necessity of doing the work as quickly as possible, butshe also felt a special obligation to the applicants themselves. She took seriouslythe agency directors comment that the agency could use this opportunity to helpeducate the applicants about the procedures involved in such projects. She feltthat it was very important to contact the applicants periodically to let them knowwhat was happening, for example, with the inspections, cost estimates, loanamounts, financial information, and terms and conditions of the loans. UnlikeJohn, who spent most of his time in the office, she talked frequently with theapplicants, many of whom she knew personally from her previous position in theagency.

For each applicant, John and Carol were to accumulate a complete file ofinformation about financial status and about the rehabilitation project theapplicant had in mind. This file was to be received and signed by the applicant,then forwarded to the regional office of the federal Department of Housing andUrban Development (HUD) for its action on the loan.

John felt that the process could be completed more quickly if Carol wouldsimply get the applicants to sign a blank set of forms that could be kept at theoffice. When information was received regarding a loan, the appropriate itemscould be entered on the signed forms, thus saving the time that would beinvolved in reviewing each form with the applicant. Also, this procedure would



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eliminate the often lengthy process of coordinating several office visits to discussthe material.

When John asked Carol to obtain the signed forms, she refused. She not onlyfelt that the applicants should see and understand the materials before signing, shewas afraid that it might be illegal to have people sign blank forms. When shetalked with Johns supervisor about the request, she was told that the procedurewas not illegal and had even been used before in the regional office.

John and Carol obviously had different orientations toward the role of publicadministration in modern society. Similarly, they had different understandings of howone might be effective as an administrator. Consequently, when they encounteredthis particular situation, they immediately fit the given circumstances into theiradministrative frames of reference, and these frameworks became the bases for theiractions. John seemed most concerned with the efficient completion of the task withwhich he had been presented, while Carol seemed more concerned that she beimmediately responsive to members of the client group and helping them tounderstand the loan process.

As we will see, the issues that seem to separate John and Carol are notunusual; indeed, they lie at the heart of public administration theory. On the onehand, government agencies are urged to attain the greatest possible efficiency intheir delivery of servicesto cut through red tape whenever possible. On theother hand, since public agencies should presumably operate in the publicinterest, they must be responsive to the needs and desires of those with whomthey work. Moreover, one might argue that public agencies bear a specialresponsibility to help educate citizens to deal more effectively with social prob-lems on their own.

This case also provides an interesting commentary on another issue that wewill encounter in our study of public organizations: where we stand considerablyinfluences what we see. Specifically, a persons actions often look quite differentfrom the inside than from the outside. We might, for example, characterize Johnsbehavior as self-serving, concerned only with impressing those who mightinfluence his impending promotion; more charitably, however, we might char-acterize John as highly concerned for the agencys clients, anxious to help themreceive their loan approvals as quickly as possible in order to ease their financialdifficulties. John himself might describe his actions in either of these ways, or hemight speak of the situation in completely different terms. For example, he mightsay that he felt tremendous pressure to get the job done, both from those insideand those outside the organization; consequently, he experienced this entiresituation, especially the conflict with Carol, as a source of personal anguish.

On the one hand, government agencies are urged to attain the greatest possibleefficiency in their delivery of services. On the other hand, they must be responsive tothe needs and desires of those with whom they work.

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Although we can rather readily describe the behavior of individuals in organ-izations, it is much more difficult to assess the meaning that their activities havefor them. Yet in seeking intelligence and compassion in our understanding ofpublic organizations, both are necessary.

F O R M A L T H E O R I E S O F P U B L I C O R G A N I Z A T I O N

We mentioned earlier the number of sources from which we derive our under-standing of public organizations. Regardless of whether we consciously attempt todevelop our perspectives, they do develop, and we are guided by them. If we wishto sharpen our ability to respond with greater intelligence and compassion tothose situations we face as members or clients of public organizations, we need toconsider more carefully the implicit theories we hold. One way to do that, ofcourse, is to compare our own implicit theories of public organization with thosemore explicit theories developed by theorists and practitioners in an attempt tobetter understand the organizational world in which we live. We can compareformal theories of public organization with our own perspectives, then make theadjustments or refinements that would enable us to understand more clearly ourown actions and the actions of others.

Why Study Formal Theories?

There are clearly certain advantages to examining formal theories. Althoughthose who construct such theories entertain essentially the same questions asothers seeking a better understanding of organizational life, they do so withconsiderably more care, rigor, and sophistication. Not that they are any brighteror more perceptive than othersthey simply have more time to devote to theeffort. Because formal theories are more carefully developed, they reflect botha wider range of topics than we might ordinarily consider and an agendaemphasizing those items that seem most important. For this reason, formaltheories provide a benchmark against which we may measure our own ap-proaches to organizational life. In seeking to improve our own understanding, wewould be well advised to study the way in which other theorists and practitionershave attempted to construct their own theories. By doing so, we get an idea ofthe range of questions that we should consider, an overview of the issues that havebeen debated back and forth (and among which we will inevitably have tochoose), and a sense of where we stand with respect to the central questionsfacing those in public organizations.

Of course, theorists differ with respect to what constitutes an appropriatetheoretical base for understanding public organizations; however, at a very broadlevel, most agree that the purpose of theory generally is to provide a morecoherent and integrated understanding of our world than we might otherwisehold. Theory seeks to move beyond a simple observation of facts or a blindadherence to certain values to provide more general interpretations. It does notsimply draw together facts, it draws from them; it does not simply recognizevalues, it reorders them. In this way, theories add a symbolic dimension to our



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experience. A theory is not simply an arrangement of facts or values but athoughtful reconstruction of the way we see ourselves and the world around us. Itis a way of making sense of a situation. Theories may then be evaluated in termsof their capacity to help us see our world more clearly and to act more effectivelyin that world.

As we have already seen, administrative practitioners have to make choicesabout the kind of knowledge they need, the ways in which it can be successfullyacquired, and the ways in which it may be applied. Theorists must do the samethey must ask what kinds of knowledge they wish to produce, how they canensure that their results will be complete and accurate, and how the newlyacquired knowledge can be applied. Theorists must make certain choices aboutwhat to study and how to study it. And, once these choices have been made,theorists and their theories are bound by them.

For this reason, we should maintain some skepticism concerning theories ofpublic organization (and concerning other theories as well). We must realize thatthese theories of public organization, like public organizations themselves, resultfrom human activityparticular constructions that may be more or less appro-priate for various purposes. All theories emphasize certain things and de-emphasize others; they therefore reflect the broader commitments of a givenculture. For this reason, as we consider various theories, we will see life reflected;but we should realize that this reflection is imperfect, filtered as it is through thelens of the general culture and the specific choices made by the theorist. Con-sequently, theories may sometimes conceal reality and at other times project it.

The Role of Models

This fact can be illustrated by a consideration of the roles of models in trans-mitting knowledge. Public administration theorists often speak of their work asthe task of developing models of organization or models of administration. In thissense, the term model does not mean an ideal form of organization or type ofadministration but rather a representation of real life (in this case, a verbal rep-resentation). We might, for example, think of organizations as analogous to themodels of molecular structures found in physics, with the balls being variousoffices and the connecting rods being lines of authority. In any case, the modelsdeveloped by theorists of public organization share some of the characteristics ofmodels in general.

Consider for a moment a particular model automobile. This model car isintended to represent a real full-sized car. It has the same general shape as thelarger car; it has bumpers and windows; and it even has wheels that roll. In theserespects, the model car reflects reality rather well. But in one sense, the model caris drastically differentit has a rubber-band motor instead of a gasoline com-bustion engine. In this respect, the model car distorts rather than reflects reality.Yet this distortion was intentional. The model maker wished to illustrate the factthat the automobile moves along the ground and felt that it was more importantto illustrate this aspect of the full-sized cars performance than to portray accu-rately the device by which it is propelled. The resulting model is then both a

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reflection and a distortion of reality. For the model to be meaningful to us, wemust recognize which is which.

In investigating theories of public organization, therefore, we should alwaysseek to be aware of the choices theorists have made in constructing their theoriesand the distortions to which these choices may have led. In terms of language, weshould always inquire into what is said, what is left unsaid, and what should besaid next. This last point is particularly important, for, as earlier discussionshowed, theory invites action. Thus, we should ask how theories express not onlywho we and our organizations are but also who we and our organizations mightbecome.

B U I L D I N G T H E O R I E S O F P U B L I C O R G A N I Z A T I O N

Let us now turn to the choices that theorists have had to make with respect tobuilding theories of public organization. Specifically, we argue here that thesechoices have left our understanding of life in public organizations incomplete;even so, although a comprehensive and integrated theory of public organizationhas not yet been developed, a number of very important themes appropriate tothat study have been explored in great detail. Moreover, the possibility now existsthat these themes can finally be brought together to fulfill the promise of publicadministration theoryto help make sense of our involvement with publicorganizations and in turn to improve the overall quality of the public service.

Although this argument is developed throughout the book, it is appropriateat this point to review some of the ways in which the issue of theory building inpublic administration has been viewed in the past and to outline some of the waysin which a more integrated approach might be developed. With respect to thescope of public administration theory, at least three orientations can be identified.First, public administration has been viewed as part of the governmental processand therefore akin to other studies in political science. In this view, a theory ofpublic organization is simply part of a larger political theory. Second, publicorganizations have been viewed as much the same as private organizations. In thisview, a theory of public organization is simply part of a larger theory of organ-izations. Third, it has been argued that public administration is a professionalfield, much like law or medicine, that draws on various theoretical perspectives toproduce practical impacts. In this view, a theory of public organization is bothunattainable and undesirable.

Public Administration and Government

The view that public administration is distinguished by its relationship to thegovernmental process was held by many early writers in the field and continues toattract numerous followers. From this perspective, the public bureaucracy isrecognized not only as being an arm of government but also as playing a sig-nificant role in the governmental process. Public organizations are said to affectthe development and implementation of public policy in various ways andconsequently to affect the allocation of values in society. If this is the case,



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however, then such organizations must be subject to the same criteria of eval-uation as other actors in the political process. Terms such as freedom, equality,justice, responsiveness, and so on are as appropriately applied to the public bureaucracyas to the chief executive, the legislature, or the judiciary. Therefore, according tothis view, the body of theory most appropriate to inform the operations of thebureaucracy is political theory, and the most important recommendations theoristsmight make are those that would guide the formulation and implementation ofpublic policy.

This view of public organizations as central to the political process was heldby many early theorists, especially those from the discipline of political science.(Curiously, the relationship between the subfields of public administration andpolitical theory is marked by considerable ambivalence. Although often seen asthe practical and philosophical extremes of the discipline, public administrationand political theory share an important heritage based on their concern foreffective democratic governance.) Although the roots of public administration inpolitical theory have often been neglected, usually in favor of more immediatetechnical concerns, some theorists have maintained an interest in the politicaltheory of public organizationan interest that we will later see especially markedin the new public service and in certain aspects of the recent emphasis onpublic policy.

Public Administration and Private Organizations

In contrast to this position, others have argued that the behavior of individualswithin organizations and the behavior of organizations themselves are much thesame, regardless of the type of organization being studied. This generic approachto organizational analysis has also attracted many followers and has indeed createdan interdisciplinary study drawing from work in business administration, publicadministration, organizational sociology, industrial psychology, and various otherfields. Proponents of this view argue that the basic concerns of management arethe same, whether one is managing a private corporation or a public agency. Thatis, in either case, the manager must deal with issues of power and authority, withissues of communication, and so forth. If this is the case, we should expect thatlessons learned in one setting would be easily transferable to the other. Moreimportant, lessons learned in either setting would contribute to a general theoryof organizations. For example, research on both the motivation of assembly-lineworkers in the automobile industry and on the effects of new incentive patternsin the public sector would contribute to a more general explanation of employeemotivation.

Typically associated with the view that a generic study of administrationshould be undertaken is the view that the chief concern of such a study should beefficiency. In part, this view grows out of the early relationship between scienceand business, which clearly emphasized the use of scientific principles to increasethe productivity of the organization. But this concern was soon voiced as well inthe public sector; indeed, in an article often cited as inaugurating the field ofpublic administration, Woodrow Wilson (1887) argued that such a study might

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permit the same gains in efficiency as those being made in the private sector.In any case, this viewpoint, proposing a generic study of organizations structuredaround an interest in making organizations more efficient, remains an importantand perhaps even a dominant one among students of public administration.

Public Administration as a Profession

Finally, there is the view that public administration is best viewed as a profession,like law or medicine, drawing from many theoretical perspectives. Dwight Waldo,one of the most revered theorists in public administration (1975, pp. 223224),was especially vocal in promoting this viewpoint, drawing an analogy with thefield of medicine: There is no single, unified theory of illness or health, theoriesand the technologies based on them constantly change, there are vast unknowns,there is bitter controversy over medical questions of vital importance, the elementof art remains large and important. Health proves, on close scrutiny, to be asundefinable as good administration. Yet in spite of the apparent lack of coherencein theory, medical schools purport to train professionals in the field of medicine anddo so by drawing on the theoretical perspectives of many different disciplines.Similarly, one might argue that education for careers in public administrationshould follow a comparable strategy, with our being concerned less with the dis-ciplinary background of certain ideas and techniques than with their applicability toproblems administrators actually face. Given that no single discipline can currentlyprovide the kind of knowledge needed by administrators in the public sector, wemight hope that all disciplines would contribute what they can.

Unfortunately, this view of public administration as a profession, perhapseven more than the other views presented here, precludes the possibility of acomprehensive and integrated theory of public organizations as well as the pos-sibility that the theory will fully match the interests and concerns of practitioners.To say that public administrators must merely draw from theoretical perspectivesdeveloped within the context of such a traditional academic discipline asorganizational analysis or political science is to say that public administrators mustdepend for guidance on theories not directly suited to their interests. From thestandpoint of the administrator, political theory remains incomplete, for it leavesout essential concerns of management; similarly, organizational analysis isincomplete, for it leaves out a concern for democratic responsibility. In any case,the administrator is left with the theoretical problem of reconciling the twoperspectives, a task that even the most talented theorists have not yet been able toaccomplish.

F O C U S I N G O N C O M P L E X O R G A N I Z A T I O N S

Before the scope of theories of public organization can be examined further, it isimportant to note two other tendencies in public administration theory that havelimited the range of questions entertained by the field. First, most, althoughcertainly not all, public administration theorists have focused their work primarily



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on large and complex organizations. Thus, for example, definitions of the termorganization have revolved around features most clearly associated with traditionalbureaucratic structures. Organizations are said to be groups of people broughttogether to accomplish some purpose; they are seen as directing the activities ofmany individuals so that some particular goal can be achieved. In addition, thedirection of these activities occurs through a series of authority relationships inwhich superiors and subordinates interact. Characteristically, in these relation-ships authority flows primarily from the top down. Bureaucratic organizations arealso defined by their structure, or hierarchy, which results from dividing labor andclarifying authority relationships (so that each person has only one boss).

Although most definitions of organization developed by persons studying largeand complex organizations involve some combination of these elements, it ispossible to define organization in a more open-ended fashion. For example, ChesterBarnard (1948, p. 73) described an organization as a system of consciously co-ordinated activities or forces of two or more persons. Note that Barnards defi-nition not only expands the range of groups we might consider organizations butalso suggests that we focus on coordinated activities rather than formal mecha-nisms. Although most of the theories reviewed in this book concentrate on largeand complex organizations, the wide range of public agencies suggests thatwe remain open to a less restrictive definition of our subject matter. Moreover,we should be aware that by taking attributes of large bureaucratic structures asdefining characteristics of public organizations, we may unconsciously commitourselves to a continuation of such structures. If public administration practitionersand theorists choose to study only bureaucratic organizations, they are far lesslikely to consider alternative modes of organization. Indeed, they may tend to tryto fit other organizations into this model. (As we will see later, there is a greatadvantage to being more flexible on this issue.)

Equating Public and Government Administration

Second, most, although again not all, public administration theorists have largelyequated public administration with government administrationthat is, withcarrying out the mandates of government. Students of public administration haveconcentrated on those agencies formally a part of government: departments,boards, and commissions at the local, state, and federal levels. Paul Appleby (1945,Ch. 1) argued that since government is different from private enterprise, publicadministration is different from business administration. Certainly there are rea-sons for thinking that the field of public administration can be differentiated fromother, similar fields, but is this simply because it is attached to government? Whenthose in public agencies are asked what they see as distinctive about their work,they tend to clearly distinguish their perception of their own work from theirperception of work in private industry. For example, they note that governmentagencies are typically more interested in service than in production or profit.Consequently, they argue that the purposes of government agencies are consid-erably more ambiguous than those of private industry and are usually stated interms of service rather than profit or production. With goals that are more

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difficult to measure, they argue, government agencies are inherently limited inthe degree of efficiency they can attain. Moreover, practitioners point out that thedecision-making process in public agencies is pluralistic, and that not only mustagency personnel be attentive to other factors in the environment, but also theirability to act may be effectively preempted by decisions made elsewhere in thegovernment system. The requirement that government agencies be responsive tothe interests of the citizenry places obvious, although certainly proper, restrictionson the decision-making process. Finally, practitioners note that their actionsoccur much more in the public eye than those of their counterparts in industry.As the old saying goes, public administrators live in a goldfish bowl, their everymovement scrutinized by an often critical public.

For many administrators in this country, these opportunities and constraintsdo indeed set the world of public administration apart. However, there are signsthat these features are not simply due to the fact that government is involved. Onecould certainly argue that less democratic political systems can be more precise intheir objectives, less pluralistic in their decision-making processes, and morecareless about openness or accountability. It is quite possible to conceive oftotalitarian systems in which administrative activities would appear to have noneof these distinguishing characteristics. In addition, many so-called privateenterprises are today being increasingly thrust into the public arena and arefinding it necessary to modify traditional management practices. Many privateand quasi-public organizations are more and more oriented toward serviceobjectives. They carry out their efforts with increasing concern for the impact ofuncertain environmental factors, and their operations are subjected to carefulscrutiny by both government and the public.

This development suggests not that government and business are becomingmore and more alike (although they may be) but that the degree of democra-tization to which an organization is committed determines the publicness of itsmanagement processes. Those organizations that are committed to following anopen, public process in the formatting and execution of policy will indeedencounter the special opportunities and constraints that we associate with publicorganizations.

R E D E F I N I N G T H E F I E L D

We argue here that a theory of public organization may indeed be obtainedthrough a redefinition of the field. To move beyond the restrictions of pastdefinitions, an alternative should have the following characteristics: it shouldclarify the perspectives of earlier approaches to the fieldthe political, thegeneric, and the professional; it should identify public administration as a processrather than as something that occurs within a particular type of structure (hier-archy, for example); and it should emphasize the public nature of that processrather than its connection to formal systems of government. Such an alternativewill be outlined later; first, a definition of the field will be developed on whichsuch an alternative can be built.



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Democratic political theory as typically described is concerned with the wayin which public institutions promote societal values that have been defined andapplied with a high degree of citizen involvement and with a high degree ofresponsiveness to the needs and interests of the citizenry. Democratic theory thusfocuses on such issues as freedom, justice, and equality. Theories of organization,in contrast, are concerned with how individuals can manage change processes totheir own or to corporate advantage, especially in large systems. Such theoriesfocus on issues of power and authority, leadership and motivation, and thedynamics of groups in action.

Bringing these two perspectives together, this book will argue that publicadministration is concerned with managing change processes in pursuit of pub-licly defined societal values. Such a definition of the field suggests that publicadministration is more than simply the conjunction of several other approaches tostudy and practicethat it contains an essential and indeed distinctive coherenceof subject matter. This being the case, our new definition would permit theoriesof public administration rather than theories related to public administration. Tothe extent that we are able to define our subject matter in a distinctive way, wewill be able to focus on the development of a coherent and integrated theory ofpublic organization. Moreover, to the extent that our definition corresponds topractice, it will be of considerably greater relevance to those active in the fieldthan other theories that have thus far been proposed. Indeed, it will recognize theawkward complexity that characterizes the work of the public manager.

This view of the public manager suggests an individual sensitive to the impactof interpersonal and structural relationships on the development of stable orchanging patterns of organizationssomeone able to recognize and respond tothe subtleties of organizational change processes. It also acknowledges that thepublic manager stands in a special relationship to the design and implementationof societal valuesa relationship that provides an ethical basis for public man-agement. The manager lives in the nexus of a political and an administrativeworld and therefore is neither an independent actor nor solely an instrument ofthe political system. In this singular position, the manager accepts, interprets, andinfluences the values which guide the application of skills and knowledge(Denhardt and Nalbandian, 1980).

As we examine various approaches to understanding life in public organ-izations, our definition of public administrationthat is, managing changeprocesses in pursuit of publicly defined societal valuesshould become clearer.However, it is important to recognize that such a definition only permits, butdoes not ensure, the development of a comprehensive theory of public organ-ization. To achieve such a theory and sort out its implications for administrative

Public administration is concerned with managing change processes in pursuit ofpublicly defined societal values.

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practice will require the examination and reconciliation of many diverse view-points. As such, the development of a theory of public organization constitutes amajor and difficult task not only for theorists but for practitioners as well.

C O N C L U S I O N

With these considerations in mind, we may now turn to some of the forces thathave shaped our understanding of the role of public organizations in modernsociety. As we have seen, all of us construct implicit theories that guide ouractions in public organizations. One way to focus our own theories more clearlyand to improve their effectiveness as guides to action is to study more formaltheories of public administration. By doing so, we can test our personal theoriesby comparing them with those of others and consider more carefully how ourtheories might help us as members or clients of public organizations.

The next several chapters examine how theorists and practitioners in publicadministration have sought to develop more formal perspectives on publicmanagement. The purpose is not merely to present a historical overview of thedevelopment of public administration theory but rather to examine those ideasthat might be of greatest relevance to the eventual construction of a compre-hensive and integrated theory of public organization. Although the contributionsof such disciplines as political science and organizational analysis are noted,attention is focused on the works of those theorists who have consciouslyemphasized the study of public organizations and, in doing so, have formed thebasis of the modern study of public administration.

Our discussion begins with a consideration of the broad significance of thestudy of public organizations for individuals in modern society. As the discussionin this chapter has made clear, building a theory of public organization is notsimply a matter of accumulating sets of techniques that can be applied to particularsituations. To speak of the meaningfulness of our experiences or the impact thatthose experiences have on the values of society is to begin a much more complexstudyone that suggests that we be attentive not only to empirical questionsrelated to the management of change in complex systems but also to the largersocial, political, and ethical contexts within which public organizations exist.

R E F E R E N C E S

Appleby, Paul. Big Democracy. New York: Knopf, 1945.

Barnard, Chester. The Functions of the Executive. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, 1948.

All of us construct implicit theories that guide our actions in public organizations.



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Denhardt, Robert B., and Nalbandian John. Teaching Public Administration as a

Vocation. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Public

Administration, 1980.

Waldo, Dwight. The Study of Public Administration. New York: Doubleday, 1955.

Waldo, Dwight. Education in the Seventies. In American Public Administration, edited by

Mosher, Frederick C., pp. 181232. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1975.

Wilson, Woodrow. The Study of Administration. Political Science Quarterly ( June 2,

1887): 197222.

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Credits

Pages 2729, quotations reprinted with permission of Macmillan PublishingCo., Inc. from The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, by Max Weber,translated by A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons. Copyright 1947, renewed1975 by Talcott Parsons.

Page 30, quotations from The Age of Bureaucracy, by W. J. Mommsen. Copyright 1974 by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Reprinted by permission.Pages 3132, quotations from The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis, bySigmund Freud. Copyright 1955 by Regnery Gateway, Inc. Reprinted bypermission.

Pages 3953, scattered quotations from The Administrative State, by DwightWaldo. Copyright 1948 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. This and all other quotesfrom the same source are reprinted by permission.

Pages 6970 and 76, scattered quotations from Public Administration, by H. A.Simon, D. W. Smithburg, and V. A. Thompson. Copyright 1950 by HerbertSimon, Donald Smithburg, and Victor Thompson. Reprinted by permission.

Pages 134136, quotations from Intellectual Crisis in American Public Admin-istration, by Vincent Ostrom. Copyright 1974 by the University of AlabamaPress. Reprinted by permission.

Pages 149188, a portion of Chapter 7 is adapted from The Political Theory ofReinvention, by Linda deLeon and Robert B. Denhardt.

Pages 165167, Toward a Critical Theory of Public Organization, by Robert B.Denhardt, reprinted with permission from Public Administration Review, 1981by the American Society for Public Administration, 1225 Connecticut Avenue,N.W., Washington, D.C. All rights reserved.

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Chapter 1: Learning About Public OrganizationsTHE ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGEFORMAL THEORIES OF PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONBUILDING THEORIES OF PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONFOCUSING ON COMPLEX ORGANIZATIONSREDEFINING THE FIELDCONCLUSIONREFERENCESSealedMedia_User: iChapters User

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