Looking toward 2000, and beyond: Some developmental tendencies in organizations

Based on our combined readings of partially overlapping literatures, and spiced by our consulting experience and instructional work with employees at all levels, this essay identifies 14 developmental tendencies that seem to have a reasonable chance of becoming dominant features of our exploring organizational landscapes. The effort can be labelled “future scan,” with the focal length varying from tendencies that are already observable in numbers of cases to those that seem noteworthy despite their rarity.     

Barnard and morality in organizations

Since Chester I. Barnard wrote The Functions of the Executive in 1938 numerous authors have cited his many ideas about organizational and individual behavior. Barnard believed that an individual's willingness to cooperate and function within an organization related to his or her “zone of indifference,” and the amount of authority the individual was willing to grant to a superior. Barnard's ideas concerning the zone of indifference are related in this article to “Stages of Moral Development” as measured by protocols developed by Lawrence Kohlberg.     

Public organizations: A value-conflict view

That values are at the core of public administration is a notion that has gained popularity and credibility in recent years. From this perspective, public administrators have become inextricably involved in both adjusting to and promoting institutionalized values. Certain values shaping public organizations may, however, be distinctive in quality and magnitude from those of private organizations. Our purpose in this essay is to suggest criteria for identifying the distinctive values of public organizations, to propose and define three such values, to briefly examine the dynamics of change engendered by value conflicts and dilemmas, and to speculate on the theoretical and practical implications of our proposed values framework. In the process an inchoate perspective is outlined in which values occupy the centerpiece of inquiry in public administration.     

Management 2000

Public Management 2000 will need to do much more if it is to perform more effectively in an increasingly difficult and challenging environment likely to emerge in the next decade. To make any appreciable difference, it must prepare itself now by internationalizing public service attitudes, adapting to the changing role of the state in society and assimilating the new public managerialism which is beginning to take hold in Western countries. Furthermore, it needs to be much less tolerant of public maladministration, it must improve its public relations image, and it should strengthen its commitment to public service. Above all, public managers must take their own professional commitments more seriously and their professional associations must play a bigger role in promoting better performance. But integrating science and practice will be worthless without professional integrity. Otherwise, Public Management 2000 will just follow Business Management 2000 and remain the poor relative doing an inferior job.

Public managers will look back on the 1980s with some nostalgia. Compared with the numerous challenges that will confront them long before the year 2000, the past decade will appear in retrospect to be a rather peaceful period of adjustment. True, they had to cope with a severe crisis in the downturn of public resources, the quest for external funds and internal economies, the demand for privatization and the divestment of state monopolies, and pressure for improved public sector productivity. In some parts of the world they had acute problems of political instability, civil war, insurrection, economic paralysis, foreign intervention and institutionalized corruption.

Those who look to the 1990s for relief have not had much cause for optimism. The new decade did not begin well. Two specific events stood out. One was the collapse of bureaucratic centralism and the disinte-gration of the East Bloc, presenting an ideological challenge to the Left when the ground was virtually cut from under its feet. The other was yet another Middle East crisis threatening world energy reserves, military confrontation and international intervention that changed the rules of the former world order.

Another ominous trend was the corruption revealed in the transaction of public affairs all around the world, ranging from the stock market scandals in the United States and Japan to illegal international trade in narcotics and armaments, from the collapse of unworthy banking houses to the kleptocracy of dictators. These undermined public confidence in public institu0tions and revealed how government and public admini-stration could not be trusted to protect public interests. Managerialism cannot do much against greed. As Scott and Hart conclude⁽³⁾:

Greed appears to be the hallmark of our times, when corporate raiders loot perfectly sound companies or raid government programs for no other reason than that they are there to be looted and raided. ⁽³⁾

All these problems crowd in on public management and make managing the public's business much more difficult and uncertain.

The 1990s will be volatile and no doubt there are more startling events in store as the world heads into the 21st century. Nothing can be taken for granted any more; there are few givens. Only brave or foolish persons can claim to predict the future, and they are likely to be wrong. Like everyone else, they will be caught off guard by any number of surprising and unexpected happenings, beyond current imagination. The only certainty is that the future will not resemble the present; it will not be a mere continuation of the past. Public sector managers more so than their private sector counterparts will just have to be ready for anything, particularly the hidden twists and turns and cope the best they can in the circumstances. But there is a world of difference between facing the future blind and ignorant or aware and wise (or at least clued-in) and perhaps prepared. If they do not start preparing themselves now, they will certainly be unprepared by the year 2000. One thing is clear -- unless public managers take themselves more seriously, their future will be determined largely by others and that usually means following the business route.     

Health maintenance organizations as Medicaid providers.

Evolution of a one-door, one-class system of medicine for all Americans was the professed goal of the social legislation of the 1960s. The development of health maintenance organizations (HMOs) was seen to be a major mechanism for assuring access to care and at the same time reducing the costs of social health programs. This has currently been reinforced by procompetitive proposals, which predict great efficiency resulting from the envisaged competition among organized systems of care. This article argues that established HMOs have no incentives to enroll Medicaid beneficiaries and that under current arrangements. Medicaid beneficiaries have no incentives to enroll in HMOs. As Medicaid programs across the states are cut, resulting in fewer benefits and more restricted physician payments, beneficiaries may have greater incentives to enroll in organized systems. Private physicians may also face greater incentives to develop HMOs to serve Medicaid beneficiaries. If that happens, however, a two-class system--one for the poor and one for others--will be institutionalized; and to assure minimum standards of care for the poor, more, not less, regulation will be required.     

Decision-making in organizations: the new paradigm

Decision-making is ever present in all forms of organized human activity. Decisions range from the simple to the complex within large organizations, whether in the nonprofit, public or private sectors. Throughout human history, man has sought to control the results of his decisions, to quantify them, to increase their predictability and to reduce their risks. Three current areas of decision making: risk assessment, chaos theory and strategic management are analyzed in this article. Their interconnectedness and potential as a “new paradigm” is its focus.     

Ethics in organizations: a perspective on reciprocation

Some scholars have assigned the responsibility for ethical conduct in the public sector to individual administrators. Supporters of this perspective contend that individuals are able to introduce ethics into the administrative process by assuming personal responsibility for ethical action. The inference is that organizations cannot be expected to assume responsibility for ethical conduct.

Conversely the contention that individual ethics are inadequate in organizations is posed as a counter argument. Supporters of this contention argue that individual integrity does not mean that organizations will act ethically. They argue that organizational ethics are independent of individual ethics. Hence, they are treated as separate entities that do not compliment each other.

An argument that organizations and individuals engage in complimentary actions which lead to ethical conduct is largely absent in the literature. I argue that there is a reciprocal relationship between individuals and organizations. Thus, individual and organizational ethics are not separate but interactive entities     

世界主要国际组织的档案信息服务

国际组织主要是指国家与国家之间为了特定的目的和任务,根据共同签订的条约而建立的一种常设性办事机构.当代国际社会存在职能各异、规模不一的国际组织.     

How empowering leadership reduces employee silence in public organizations

The intentional withholding of critical work‐related information can have serious negative consequences in public organizations. Yet, few studies have examined why public employees intentionally remain silent about problems and how to prevent such behaviour. This article provides insights into how managers may lower employee silence in government organizations. We develop a model that suggests that empowering leadership by frontline supervisors reduces public employee silence, by improving employee trust in their supervisors, granting employees control over their jobs, and strengthening identification with the organization. We test the model in two cross‐sectional studies with data collected from all employees working in two local governments in the United States. We find empirical support for the model in both studies. We discuss the implications of the research results for public management scholarship and practice.     

Representative bureaucracy,international organizations and public service bargains

Academic interest in the administrative aspects of international organizations is on the rise. Yet, an issue that has received little attention is bureaucratic representation—the extent to which international bureaucracies are representative of the polity that they serve. The article theorizes the rationales for and forms of representative bureaucracy in international organizations by combining insights from the representative bureaucracy literature with the ‘public service bargains’ framework. It argues that bureaucratic representation is highly relevant in international organizations, given the diverse polity these organizations serve and their precarious legitimacy. It distinguishes three types of representational ‘bargains’ between international organizations and those they serve, centred on power, equal opportunities and diversity, and discusses under which conditions each type of bargain is likely to be struck. The argument contributes to discussions about representative bureaucracy in international organizations and to broader theoretical debates about international public administration.     

China-2000: Introduction

This paper argues that, firstly, while economic development in China has been impressive, solutions to a number of critical political and socio-economic problems and issues are still awaiting. And secondly, due to ideological confusion among Party members and government officials, malperformance of the Party and administrative systems, a necessary condition for political upheaval in China, has been, and is likely to remain, serious: In conclusion, it is questionable if political stability and social harmony can be enhanced in China in the near future.     

The architecture of organizations as missed opportunity in political research

Few scholars in political science or public administration deny that organization matters. However, the rare application of an organizational perspective in research suggests otherwise. To revive the awareness of organizations as unit or level of analysis, attributed and generic properties are distinguished. Attributed properties, which dominate research, assign functions and patterns of behaviour to an organization. In contrast, generic properties refer to the constitutive elements of organizations that take effect before attributed properties. This article takes a closer look at four generic properties by examining their often-implicit use in current political science and public administration research. The aim is to demonstrate that the formal dimension, the goals, the expertise of personnel and organizational boundaries exert an independent influence on the output of political or public sector organizations.     

The adaptation of Taiwan's administrative organizations to its economic development

Since moving its seat to Taiwan in 1949, the government of the Republic of China has been able to resume its efforts towards national reconstruction on this island at an accelerated speed. Because of rapid political, economic, and social developments in recent decades, Taiwan's political environment is quite different from what it was previously. In changing from continental to island, national to local, and agricultural to industrial, the public's demands have changed significantly. Under Taiwan's current political and economic situation, what course of development should Taiwan's administrative organizations follow? What kind of self- adaptation to this changing environment should Taiwan's administrative system take? This article describes Taiwan's current administrative environment and operation from a physical and cultural setting. Its ways of adaptation are examined as well must be reasonable and rational. Restated, measures to change the quality of governmental services, governmental expense, the taxes the citizens pay, and the services citizens receive should be taken rationally (¹).     

Distributed leadership and performance-related employee outcomes in public sector organizations

Distributed leadership is the sharing of leadership tasks between managers and employees. This article demonstrates how a distributed leadership perspective adds to the public administration literature by including an important sensitivity to planned and nonplanned leadership. We propose a theoretical model that explains the impact of distributed leadership on employee outcomes which have a direct or indirect impact on organizational performance in public organizations contingent on alignment with individual leadership capacity and organizational goals. Our empirical analysis in the Danish hospital sector shows initial support for the expected relationships between distributed leadership and performance-related employee outcomes such as job satisfaction and innovative behavior. This indicates that the distributed leadership perspective holds the potential to strengthen service delivery in complex public service organizations while there is weaker support for the notion that the positive impact of distributed leadership depends on individual leadership capacity and their support for organizational goals.     

Toward 2000 in policy analysis

Looking back over the 20th century and especially over the past 40 years from 1950 to 1990, one can observe various trends in public policy substance and the study of public policy.