Comparative Public Administration
February 12, 2025
“Leadership and managership are two synonymous terms” is an incorrect statement. Leadership doesn’t require any managerial position to act as a leader. On the other hand, a manager can be a true manager only if he has got the traits of leader in him. By virtue of his/her position, manager has to provide leadership to […]
Expected default frequency (EDF) is an important metric to be considered during the mitigation of credit risk. It is commonly used in many formulas used to predict future credit risks and default rates. The term expected default frequency (EDF) actually refers to the KMV model which was developed by credit rating agency Moody’s. The model […]
In 1960, Douglas McGregor formulated Theory X and Theory Y suggesting two aspects of human behaviour at work, or in other words, two different views of individuals (employees): one of which is negative, called as Theory X and the other is positive, so called as Theory Y According to McGregor, the perception of managers on […]
Literally speaking, risk management is the process of minimizing or mitigating the risk. It starts with the identification and evaluation of risk followed by optimal use of resources to monitor and minimize the same. Risk generally results from uncertainty. In organizations this risk can come from uncertainty in the market place (demand, supply and Stock […]
The previous articles touched upon the role of hierarchy in decision making. In this article, we consider whether top down decision or bottom up decision making is effective. To consider this comparison it would be useful to think of top down decision making as being akin to someone sitting on top of a tree telling […]
We are at the next level of understanding departments within the organizations. In the earlier article we understood about the line staff and auxiliary agencies and the organization of business in departments based on the four principles of finance, process, clientele and geography. This article shall look at the distribution of authority within the department.
Based on the distribution of authority, there are two main systems namely Bureau System and the Board or Commission system within departments. When all the administrative authority is invested in a single individual within the department then the system is Bureau.
When a plural body is vested with all the administrative power then the system is known as Board or Commission. Now, the next obvious question that comes into the mind is how to decide which system to use. According to author Raj Kumar Pruthi, in his book Administrative Organizations, there are conditions that determine the choice of systems:
Also, when an organization has to perform both kinds of functions, then in such cases as well, the Board systems works better.
To sum up, for services and functions that require collective intelligence, holistic view points, mature decision making, a Board system works well as there are more members to arrive at balanced decisions.
The Board or Commission system is followed under following conditions:
There has been a lot of debate amongst the scholars regarding whether the public organizations and their structures inherently differ from those of private organizations.
Some support the argument saying that it does and some say that through the difference is there but it is only in the presence of red tapes in the public organizations.
Those who oppose the statement argue that, the public organizations are very different from the private organization in terms of lack of flexibility, excessive government control, lack of clear performance indicators like profit and loss and a lot of emphasis on rules and hierarchy.
Some researchers like Pugh, Hickson and Hinnings pointed out that the size of the organization and technological developments are other important determinants of the structures and hierarchy of any organization.
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