Introduction

Public Administration generally means service to the people rendered by a government agency. It is the result of evolutionary process which can be viewed from two distinct perspectives – as an activity and as a subject of study or intellectual discipline. As an activity, it is as old as social life. A peep into the history reveals that Public Administration as a distinct activity can be traced from the ancient river civilizations of Egypt, China, India and Mesopotamia—the earliest cradles of civilization. The system of centralized bureaucratic administration evolved by Egypt and the adoption of system of civil service recruitment through competitive examinations by China are evidences in this direction. In ancient times, the city states of Greece and republics and kingdoms of India also evolved their well-developed systems of administration. However, the chief feature of medieval feudal society was the anarchic decentralization in administration. It was followed by the rise of national monarchies in France, England, and Russia. Their expansionist and war-like policies led to the increase in the size of establishments which in turn resulted into ministries and departments. Further, growth of democracy changed the very nature of the administrative set up along with increase in its scope. At the same time, resolution of issues arisen in the wake of industrial revolution, made the organization and methods of administration more complex. Subsequently, the upheavals caused by World War I and II gave rise to problems of reconstruction and rehabilitation and it became imperative for the administration to solve them. Moreover, the economic crisis such as depression and inflation necessitated remedial measures by the administration. All these developments necessitated administrative interference in the entire life of the society and thereby increasing the field of its activity. It would not be out of place to mention here that before World War I the administration was basically national in character but after that it became international mainly due to the advent of rapid means of transport and communication.

Rise of the Study of Public Administration

Public Administration as an activity is as old as civilized life. But as a field of study it is of recent origin as it emerged during the closing years of the 19th century. A pertinent question arises in this regard that can such an important activity continue for a long time without having substantial theoretical base? The answer lies in the close examination of the facts which reveal that it did had a theoretical base as a part of related branches of knowledge like politics, ethics and law in different societies and remained so for a considerable long time. For example, ancient Hindu epics like Ramayana and Mahabharta deal with administrative ideas along with political. Similarly, Samritis present a vivid exposition of judicial administration. So far as Hindu treatises on politics, like the one Kautaliya’s Arthashastra, are concerned, these deal more with administrative problems than the theoretical basis of the State. Not only Indian but in other societies too one can see a similar phenomenon. Teachings of Confucius, the great ancient Chinese philosopher, contain many administrative principles. Aristotle, the Greek‘s scholar, who is regarded as the father of political science, also discussed some aspects of administration in his famous book The Politics. During the middle age which is dubbed as dark period in the human history, nothing substantial happened in this regard. However, in the renaissance era there appeared Machiavelli‘s The Prince which is considered as a treatise on the art of government and administration. In modern times also many scholarly works on Political Science and memoirs of statesmen deal extensively with administrative matters. But despite all this, there has not been clear recognition of Public Administration as a separate and distinct subject of study. Even the term ‗Public Administration‘ was used for the first time in the closing years of 18th century when Hamilton contributed a paper defining the meaning and scope of the discipline. Likewise, the first book on public administration was „Principles d‟ Administration Publique‟ written by Charles Jean Bounin, a French scholar in 1812. However, literature on this subject remained scanty so it can‘t assume the status of an independent discipline. The main reason which can be attributed to this was the lack of sufficient specialization and technicality to merit its separate and independent consideration. But industrial revolution has extended the scope of public administration by opening new vistas and that too in the highly technical fields. As a result administrative processes became too complex to be dealt only by professional and skilled civil services. This gave rise to professional civil servants and the need to systematize their skill and experience into administrative codes and manuals led to the emergence of theoretical and academic discussion of public administration as an independent discipline.

Evolution of Public Administration

Public Administration as an independent and separate subject of study began in 1887 and the credit for this goes to Woodrow Wilson. In order to understand the present status of the discipline as a field of inquiry it becomes essential to study its evolution. Many scholars and academicians dwelt upon this aspect from different perspective. Some of them have discussed it from the point of view of traditions such as Absolutist, Liberal – Democratic and Marxian while to Golembiewski it may be understood in terms of locus and focus. To him locus is the institutional where‘ of the field while focus is the specialized what‘ of the field. On this basis, he has outlined the following four developmental phases of Public Administration:

• Phase I: The analytic distinction of politics from administration.
• Phase II: The concrete distinction of politics from administration.
• Phase III: A science of management.
• Phase IV: The pervasive orientation toward public policy

Likewise, Nicholas Henry in his book entitled “Public Administration and Public Affairs” has explained the evolution of the discipline keeping in view its definitional crisis into following five successive paradigms:

• Paradigm I: The politics/Administration Dichotomy, 1900-26
• Paradigm II: The Principles of Administration, 1927-37
• Paradigm III: Public Administration as Political Science, 1950-70
• Paradigm IV: Public Administration as management, 1956-70, and
• Paradigm V: Public Administration as Public Administration, 1970-

However in a more logical sense the development of Public Administration as an academic field can be discussed through the following five successive phases:

• Phase I: The Politics/Administration Dichotomy (1887-1926)
• Phase II: The Principles of Administration (1927-1937)
• Phase III: Criticism and Challenges (1938-1950)
• Phase IV: Crisis of Identity (1950-1970)
• Phase V: Public Administration as an Independent Discipline (1970 Onwards)

Phase I: The Politics/Administration Dichotomy (1887-1926)

Woodrow Wilson was the first scholar who mainly set the tone for the early study of Public Administration through his essay entitled „The Study of Administration‟ appeared in 1887 in which he emphasized the necessity of developing the scientific foundations of the discipline. He originated the ‗politics/administration dichotomy‘- the distinction between political activity and administrative activity in public organization by observing that it ―is getting harder to run a constitution than to frame one‖. However some scholars like Richard J. Stillman II differ with this contention arguing that Wilson was well aware that public administration was innately political in nature. In fact, while formulating his politics/administration dichotomy, Wilson apparently misinterpreted some of the German literature that he read on Public Administration which made him ambivalent about the discipline. To quote Stillman, Wilson failed ―to amplify what the study of administration actually entails, what the proper relationship should be between the administrative and political realms….‖ However, this dichotomy has paved the way for the study of evolution of Public Administration.

Wilson‘s view was further continued by Frank J. Goodnow, who in his book „Politics and Administration‟, published in 1900 contended that there were two distinct functions of the government viz. politics‘ and ‗administration‘. According to him, ―politics has to do with policies or expressions of the state will while administration has to do with the execution of these policies. He explained, further, that the heart of his distinction lies in the classic separation of powers, which prescribes the desirability of entrusting ―in large measures the expression or formulation of the ―will of the sovereign‖ to ―a different organ‖ than is charged with executing that will. However, Goodnow‘s basic distinction is not as crude as many understand. In this regard Golembiewski has rightly pointed out that Goodnow‘s distinction is not monolithic, either in locus or focus. The two functions are not performed in different loci.

In the beginning of the 20th century, Public Administration started gaining popularity mainly because of the keen interest taken by scholars in the public reforms movement going on in American universities. Resultantly, a Committee on Practical Training for Public Service was established in 1912 by the American Political Science Association which recommended that professional schools were needed to train public administrators. This committee became the forerunner of the American Society for Public Administration, set up in 1939.

In 1926 Leonard D. White‘s „Introduction to the Study of Public Administration‟ was published which is regarded as the first book entirely devoted to the discipline. The main thrust of White‘s text book was Politics should not intrude on administration. ….Public Administration is capable of becoming a value –free science in its own right and the mission of administration is economy and efficiency. Thus, White strengthened the notion of a distinct politics /administration dichotomy. Accordingly, whatever Public Administration scrutinized in the executive branch was regarded as factual and scientific; while the study of public policy making and related matter was left to the political scientists. It was mainly because of the emphasis on science and fact in Public Administration, a foundation was laid for the later discovery of certain scientific principles of administration.

Phase II: The Principles of Administration (1927-1937)

During this phase, scholars believed that Public administration is a separate activity with its own well marked field and principles. In 1927, W. F. Willoughby‘s book „Principles of Public Administration‟ was published in which he asserted that ―in administration there are certain fundamental principles of general application analogous to those characterizing any science. They could be discovered and administrators would be expert in their work if they learned how to apply these principles. Further, efficiency in administration would be increased if these principles are applied. By the very fact that the principles of administration were principles, it therefore, followed that they could be applied successfully in any administrative setting.

Among the most significant works relevant to this phase were M. P. Follet‘s „Creative Experience‟(1924), Henri Fayol‘s „Industrial and General Management‟ (1930) and James D. Mooney and Alan C, Reiley‘s „Principles of Organization‟ (1939) all of which delineated varying number of overarching administrative principles. However, the landmark study in the field which enhanced the prestige of the discipline was the publication of Luther Gulick‘s and Lyndall Urwick‘s „Papers on the Science of Administration‟ (1937). According to these scholars, the general thesis of this paper is ―that there are principles which can be arrived at inductively from the study of human organization which should govern arrangements for human associations of any kind. Further, they propounded the famous concept of POSDCORB – final expression of these principles. Resultantly, Public Administration touched its zenith and this phase is regarded as a golden era in the evolution of the discipline.

Organizational theorists often dub this school of thought Administrative Management since it focused on the upper hierarchical levels of organization. A related literature that preceded the work in administrative management was under continuing development in business schools, often called Scientific Management. The most notable contribution to the literature was F. W. Taylor‘s „Principles of Scientific Management (1911). However, Scientific Management had less effect on public Administration during its principles phase because it focused on lower level personnel in the organization. Speaking in terms of locus and focus Mohit Bhattacharya has rightly pointed out that ―the public‘ aspect of public administration was virtually dropped at this stage and the focus was almost wholly on efficiency.

The lack of locus, if not, perhaps, the sharpening new focus of public administration during this period, made itself evident within the university community. Scholars who identified with the study of Public Administration nonetheless found it useful to establish American Society for Public Administration which continues to function as the nation‘s primary association of scholars and professionals of Public Administration, and as the sponsoring organization of the field‘s premier Journal Public Administration Review. It symbolized Public Administration‘s conscious need to become a profession and a discipline.

Phase III: Criticism and Challenges (1937-1950)

In the very next year (1938), the mainstream Public Administration was challenged with the publication of Chester I. Barnard‘s „The Functions of the Executive‟. The challenge came basically in two forms: first, rejection of the idea of politics administration dichotomy and second, principles of public administration lacking in scientific validity.

A book entitled „Elements of Public Administration‟ edited by Fritz Morstein Marx (1946) was one of the first major volumes to question the assumption that politics and administration could be dichotomized. It was argued that administration cannot be separated from politics because of its political nature. Further, administration is not only concerned with implementation of political policy decisions but also plays an important role in their formulation. According to Nicholas Henry, the rejection of the politics/administration dichotomy was a huge intellectual shift that fundamentally changed the nature of the field for decades and, in a way, also diminished it.

The second challenge to the field was that there could be no such thing as principles of administration. In 1946, Herbert Simon gave a foreshadowing of his Administrative Behavior in an article entitled „Proverbs of Administration‟ published in Publication Administration Review. However, the most formidable dissection of the principles notion appeared in 1947 when Simon‘s „Administrative Behaviour: A Study of Decision-Making in Administrative Organization‟ was published. In this book Simon showed that for every principle of administration there was a counter principle, thus rendering the whole idea of principles redundant. He advocated the behavioral approach to public administration to make it a more scientific discipline. He focused upon decision- making as the alternatives to the principles approach.

In the same year, Robert A. Dahl also countered the claim of principles of public administration as a science in his article entitled „The Science of Administration :Three Problems‟. He observed: ―We are a long way from a science of public administration. No science of public administration is possible unless: (a) the place of normative values is made clear; (b) the nature of man in the area of public administration is better understood and his conduct is more predictable; and (c) there is a body of comparative studies from which it may be possible to discover principles and generalities that transcend national boundaries and peculiar historical experiences.‖ The same theme was reflected by Dwight Waldo‘s in his book ―The Administrative State (1948) when he ‗attacked the notion of unchanging principles of administration, the inconsistencies of the methodology used in determining them, and the narrowness of the values of economy and efficiency that dominated the field‘s thinking.‘

The ultimate effect of Simon‘s and related critiques appearing in the late 1940‘s was to bury the belief that principles of administration, public or otherwise, could be discovered in the same sense that laws of science and nature could be. Thus, by midcentury the two defining pillars of Public Administration – the politics/administration dichotomy and the principles of administration – had been abandoned.

Phase IV: Crisis of Identity (1948 – 1970)

The discipline was in quandary and suffered from the crisis of identity due to the abandonment of politics-administration dichotomy and the principles of public administration. So the scholars of public administration reacted to this crisis by reestablishing the linkages of Public Administration first with Political Science and then with the Management. Speaking in terms of Political Science, it can be said that most of the writings on Public Administration in the 1950‘s spoke of the field as an ‗emphasis,‘ and area of interest‘ or even as a synonym‘ of Political Science. John Gaus, for example, in his famous article „Trends in the Theory of Public Administration‟ (1950) observed that ―A theory of public administration means in our time a theory of politics also. However, they were not liked and encouraged by political scientists.

During this period two developments took place –the growing use of the Case Study Method and the rise and fall of Comparative and Development Administration. The emergence of the case study method reflected the response of Public Administration to the behavioral revolution going on in that time in social sciences. So far as the rise of Comparative and Development Administration is concerned, it may be pointed out that prior to the abandonment of the principles of administration, it was assumed that cultural factors did not make any difference in administrative settings. But, later on, scholars like Robert Dahl and Dwight Waldo pointed out that ‗cultural factors could make public administration on one part of the globe quite a different ….on the other part.‘ As a result of this revised thinking, the study of Comparative Public Administration started in Universities and Colleges. However, the real impetus came in 1960 when Comparative Administrative Group was founded which received liberal grants from Ford Foundation. The Foundation‘s emphasis on the Third World led to a semi-autonomous sub-field of the Comparative Public Administration called the Development Administration. The most notable contribution in this sphere was that of F. W. Riggs. But Comparative Public Administration from its very origin emphasized upon theory building and to seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge. The purely scholarly thrust of Comparative Public Administration led to its downfall so much so that in 1973 the Comparative Administrative Group was disbanded.

Due to their second-class status in the discipline of Political Science, some scholars of Public Administration began to search for an alternative and they found the same in management which sometimes is called administrative science. They argued that organization theory was, or should be, the overarching focus of public administration.‘ A number of developments led to the selection of management, with an emphasis on organization theory, as the paradigm of public administration. In 1956, the important Journal Administrative Science Quarterly was founded on the premise that the distinction between business and institutional administration is false and that administration is administration. Further, such works as James G. March and Herbert Simon‘s „Organizations‟, Richard Cyert and March‘s „A Behavioural Theory of the Firm,‟ March‘s „Handbook of Organizations‟ and James G. Thompson‘s „Organizations in Action‟ gave solid theoretical reasons for choosing Management as the paradigm of Public Administration.

As a paradigm, Management provided a focus and not a locus. It offered techniques, often highly sophisticated techniques, that require expertise and specialization, but in what institutional setting that expertise should be applied is undefined. Regarding the relative impact of political science and management on Public Administration, Nicholas Henry has observed that if political science was profoundly influenced on the evolution and underlying values of public administration, management was less so. But, in many ways, the impact of management on public administration was also more positive.‘ But in both the situations i.e. its linkages either with Political Science or Management, the essential thrust was one of Public Administration loosing its identity.

That is why this phase known as period of identity of crisis for the discipline of Public Administration.

Phase V: Public Administration as an Independent Discipline (1970 Onwards)

However, even when the discipline of Public Administration was at its lowest ebb, it was sowing the seeds of its own renaissance. Couple of factors, complimentary to each other, contributed in this process. The first was the development of interdisciplinary programs focusing upon policy science. In this regard three distinct intertheoretical linkages – a) politics-administration union, b) Economics-administration confluence, and c) organization theory-administration intermixing — can be identified. The second was the emergence of New Public Administration (NPA) – an outcome of first Minnowbrook Conference held in 1968 sponsored by Dwight Waldo — which put more emphasis on values replacing the traditional goals of efficiency and effectiveness. Besides, it laid stress on relevance, social equity and change. The overall focus of NPA movement was to make administration less generic and more public, less descriptive and more prescriptive, less institution-oriented and more client-oriented, less neutral and more normative, but it should be no less scientific all the time. The above twin intellectual currents compelled the scholars of public administration to think in terms of academic autonomy by severing their ties both with political science and management. These, in turn, made the public administrators proud as they started asserting that their profession is useful to the society. All these developments led to the rise of an independent field of public administration.

In this backdrop, in 1970 National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) was established which comprises of institutions of higher learning of different countries offering courses on major public administration programs. It is worth mentioning that over the years, the efforts of NASPAA has led to the increase in the number of separate departments of public administration considerably. Even more and more political science departments are joining this association. Likewise, the number of public administration programs which are housed in department of management or school of business administration has declined noticeably. Thus, the formation of NASPAA represented the development of public administration as an independent area of study.

On theoretical side also, due to the impact of NPA, normative questions were being reassessed in this newly emerged discipline. The philosophy of ‗neo-liberalism‘ provided a powerful base for the setting up of public administration in ‗public interest,‘ thereby adding an ethical dimension to it. The system theory originated from natural sciences and ecological approach also strengthened the theoretical base of public administration. The ‗Sala Model‟ of Fred Riggs has proved an important milestone in this direction. Likewise, Yehezkel Dror‘s contribution in the field of Policy Sciences is providing new directions to the discipline. Increasingly, public policy academics and practitioners have utilized the theoretical concepts of political economy to explain political outcomes such as the success or failure of reform efforts.

In the late 1980‘s New Public Management (NPM) theory advocated by David Osborn and Ted Gaebler in their book Reinventing Government emphasized the use of private society style models, organizational ideas and values to improve the service and service orientation of the public sector. It treated individuals as ―customers‖ or ―clients‖, rather than as citizens. Some critics consider it inappropriate because people are viewed as economic units and not democratic participants. Nevertheless the model is still widely accepted at all levels of governments. Further, in the late 1990‘s, In response to the dominance of NPM Janet and Robert Denhardt proposed a new public service model known as digital era governance. It focused on themes of reintegrating governmental responsibilities, and digitalization exploring the transformational capabilities of modern IT and digital storage.

The Public Choice Approach of Vincent Ostrom underlined the fact that an era of State Minimalism has started in the 21st century which demand small but effective government from public administration. Another trend which one can observe is that the distinction between administration and management is becoming irrelevant. Traditionally, management is broadly concerned with industries and private enterprises while administration refers to government machinery. Now when government itself is conducting industrial and commercial activities through public enterprise and private enterprises, in turn, are adopting more and more bureaucratic system; and public and private sectors are collaborating with each other in the wake of privatization, the difference between administration and management becomes meaningless. Evidently, ‗government‘ is an important element of the state and the concrete form of ‗government‘ is ‗administration‘.

The New Public Administration (NPA) is a concept evolved to denote the academic advancement took place in the discipline of Public administration as a result of deliberations in first Minnowbrook conferences held in 1968. Rosemary O‟ Leary states “Minnowbrook stands for the spirit of critical inquiry and an honest examination of the field”. The Minnowbrook spirit is still alive and the subsequent conferences held in the year 1988 and recently in 2008 have been enriching the New Public Administration and so the discipline.

The concept of New Public Administration was born because of „grave happenings and urgent problems‟ in America during the decade of 1960‟s. There was „social upheaval‟ as lesser privileged (Black Americans) were not been able to avail benefits of the prosperity generated during the 1950‟s and early 1960‟s. This social upheaval was coupled with political violence, conflict of US force in South East Asia and declines in the commitment of Americans to their institutions: the family, the church, the media, the profession, the government etc.

Dwight Waldo in his article „Public Administration in a time of Turbulence‟ observed that “ 1960‟s was turbulent period besieged by numerous society problems, but public 2 administration showed no sign of being aware of them, much less being serious to solve them”. While narrating the prevailing state of affairs he stated that “neither the study nor the practice of public administration … responding in an appropriate measure to mounting turbulence and critical problems of the day”. Robert T Golembiewski also stated that “Public administration was shaken and affected by the turbulent or revolutionary 1960‟s. For Public administration, the 1960‟s were like war”. It was indeed a „turbulent period‟ for Public Administration in America.

Further, there was also a deep sense of dissatisfaction among practitioners regarding the existing state of discipline and especially its obsession with efficiency and economy, the salient characteristics of traditional Public administration. The mainstream public administration was preoccupied with management ideas, issues and principles. The objective was to maximize economy and efficiency. The course content and practice of public administration found irrelevant and unuseful to the vital problems of society. Besides, the Public administration in 1960‟s in United States come under the influence of younger generations which was dissatisfied with the contemporary status of public administration. The Honey Report and Philadelphia conference highlighted the prevailing restlessness among these young scholars.

It was in this setting, in 1967, Dwight Waldo, the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University with his junior colleagues (H. George Frederickson, Henry Lambright and Frank Marini) organized (first) Minnowbrook Conference at Syracuse University located in Adirondacks on September 3 through, 7, 1968.

Landmarks responsible for the emergence of New Public Administration:

The following landmarks are attributed for the emergence and growth of New Public Administration:

1. The Honey Report on Higher Education for Public Service, 1967 (USA);
2. The Philadelphia Conference on the Theory and Practice of Public Administration,1967(US, Chairman James C. Charlesworth);
3. Publication of Public Administration in a time of Revolution, 1968 – an article by Dwight Waldo; and 3
4. The Minnowbrook Conference, 1968;
5. Toward A New Public Administration : The Minnowbrook Perspective, 1971( edited by the Frank Marini);
6. Public Administration in a Time of Turbulence, 1971( by Dwight Waldo); and
7. New Public Administration, 1980(by George Frederickson).

First Minnowbrook Conference

Minnowbrook is a Maxwell school tradition conceived and initiated by Dwight Waldo. He brought together scholars under the age of 35 to critique the field and to develop ideas for the future of discipline. As already stated the conference was held at Minnow brook, a very small conference centre owned by Syracuse University in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. There, actually, is a brook called “Minnow Brook” that runs through the property. The conference centre has a capacity to house 58 people in 28 rooms. It is lonely retreat centre in one of the most beautiful parts of the United States.

Minnowbrook is a tradition of critical self-evaluation that may very well be unique to the field of public administration. It is a spirit of “questioning authority” – asking why our field does what it does – why we study the question we study. The participants (of Minnow) found the field (of public administration) inadequate in its “set of concepts and ideas to explain the modern world of administration” and formulated the ideas of “New Public Administration”, an action oriented perspective that embraced normative inquiry, and advocated for social equity and citizen participation among other issues. (Marini, 1971, Waldo 1980;130). Fifty young scholars had assembled in 1968 under the leadership of D. Waldo to redefine the focus of public administration theory. The objective was to discuss how “public service can better respond to the turbulence and critical problems” at that time.

Most of the participants were young and educated in Political Science. The mood, tone and feeling were contentious, confrontational and revolutionary but theoretical. Rosemary O‟Leary is of the opinion that: “The key word at this conference was ‘relevance’. Scholars asked if what we were doing and teaching in Public Administration had any relevance to life outside ivory tower”.

Frank Marini and Frederickson summarized the theme of the conference as relevance, anti-positivism, dissatisfaction with the state of discipline, personnel morality and ethics, innovation, improved human relations, reconciling public administration and democracy, client centered responsiveness and social equity. Some of the themes identified in this conference were so relevant that they have become important aspects of the present day public administration. These are:

Relevance

The NPA has rejected the traditional concept of efficiency and economy in administration. It stresses that the discipline had little to say about contemporary problems and issues and therefore becoming irrelevant. It was realized that the theme of relevance is more a reinterpretation than an original quest. How? First, the traditional Public Administration is concerned with efficiency and economy and the Public Administration had discovered that it paid lesser attention to the contemporary problems and issues which it ought to be. Second the contemporary scholars considered that management oriented Public Administration curriculum is irrelevant and the need to deal things explicitly with the political and administrative action was felt. Third, the character of the knowledge is also related to the relevance issue. The question that asked was: Public Administration knowledge for what? Is the purpose of Public Administration to facilitate use of administrative knowledge of perpetuation of political power? Obviously question challenged the relevance and therefore new movement (NPA) demanded radical curriculum change to facilitate meaningful studies oriented to the realities of public life to make the discipline and profession relevant one.

Mohit Bhattacharya also opined that “Management oriented public administration curriculum was found irrelevant and the demand was to deal with the political and administrative implications of administrative action”. Hence there was an urgent need to make the discipline socially relevant. In other words, there was a need for meaningful studies focusing on „policy issues‟ instead of „management of agencies‟.

The need of relevance identified and understood in the conference changed the public administrative system. While narrating the influence of NPA on public administration Frederickson in 1989 observed that “The field had shifted focus in significant measure from management of agencies to policy issues. The quality of schooling, the effects of law enforcement…………..have become “units of analysis” or “policy issue” at least as important as managerial practices in schools and in the police…… …departments”. He further stated that “The public policy approach to public administration has flourished and it has had a significant effect on the quality of government”.

Value

New Public Administration believes in normative concerns in administrative analysis. It rejected the value neutrality like in behavioural political science and management oriented (efficiency and economy) public administration. The career service bureaucrats are no longer considered to be merely implementer of fixed decisions as they were in the dominant theory of the late 1950‟s and 1960‟s; they are now understood to hold a public trust to provide the best possible public service with the cost and benefits being fairly distributed among the people.(Rohr). The NPA movement advocates the openness of the values being served through administrative action. Frederickson observed that “ The New Public Administration is less „generic‟ and more „public‟ than his forbear, less „descriptive‟ more „prescriptive‟, less „institution oriented‟ and more „client impact oriented‟ , less „neutral‟ more „normative‟, and it is hoped no less scientific”. Later on he also stated that “Ethics, Honesty, and Responsibility in government have returned again to the lexicon of public administration” thus again emphasized the normative concerns advocated by New Public Administration.

Social Equity

It means that public administration should become champion of the under privileged sections of the society and positive discrimination kind of approach/strategy may be utilized to protect and promote the interests of such sections of population in order to ensure social equity in the society. The NPA advocates that the public administration must work for the realization of social equity. Frederickson was of the opinion that “a public administration which fails to work for changes which try to redress the deprivation of minorities will likely to eventually used to repress those minorities”. Therefore, New Public Administration calls the „bureaucrats to become an instrument for achieving social equity‟.

Consequently “Social equity has been added to efficiency and economy as the rationale or justification of policy positions. Equal protection of the law has come to be considered as important to those charged with carrying out the law (public administrators) as it is to those elected to make the law”. Thus the concern for social equity has become an objective of public administration under NPA and the responsibility to ensure it has not been left to the public administration alone rather entrusted to the State as a whole.

Change

It is considered that the government agencies have often outlived their purpose and public expect a change. Increments of growth and decrements of decline have come to have more equal weight in the lexicon of the public administrator. Therefore, the government must take appropriate measure to get rid of those programmes which are undesirable and initiate the required one as a principle/norm.

Frederickson observed that “Change, not growth, has come to be understood as the more critical theoretical issue”. A responsive government „grows‟ when need emerges and „declines‟ when a service of an agency not critically required. Frederickson observed that “Managing change, not just growth, is the standard for (measuring) effectiveness”. He, further, observed that “Effective public administration has come to be defined in the context of an active and participative citizenry”. Besides this, it has been realized that “The implementation has acquired a centre stage in an administrative process of an organisation. It has replaced the decision making considered to be highly significant during 1950‟s and 1960‟s. The implementation has become important due to the fact that it is a difficult challenge to carryout decisions.

The scholars also challenged the correctness of the rational model of organization and the usefulness of the strict concept of hierarchy professed in public administration. Thus, NPA emphasizes the public administration to be free from enslavement of the redundant and outworn administrative institutions. At the same time, it suggests appropriate innovations to be effective for the fulfillment of contemporary societal needs.

The ideas and contents of Minnowbrook conference received wider recognition and three works: Toward a New Public Administration: The Minnowbrook Perspective (1971) edited by Frank Marini and Public Administration in a time of Turbulence (1971) edited by Dwight Waldo and New Public Administration by George Frederickson(1980) were produced based on what had been discussed in the conference.

The Minnowbrook conference I is credited to bring a new era in public administration characterized with relevance, values, social equity and change. Besides this the issues like public interest and relating administration with „political‟ had acquired prominence in the discipline. Narrating the positive effects of NPA, Mohit Bhattacharya states that “Its positive value lies in bringing public administration closer to political science. In fact, the movement has been successful in integrating public administration with the basic concerns of political theory”. He further states that “ The client oriented, normative and socially conscious public administration, as advocated by new movement, is of direct relevance for the third world countries as well, where public administration is dire need of de-bureaucratization and basic qualitative transformation”. However, the New Public Administration was criticized as anti theoretic, anti positivist and anti management.

The Minnowbrook Conference –II (1988)

There had been significant changes in 20 plus years since Minnowbrook-I in the settings of the American public administration. Frederickson observed that “Since the public was unable to be effective at changing government, some simply concluded that it is better to have less of it”. The era of positive government – “which stimulated rapid sub urbanization, the stringing together of American cities with a national network of freeways, and the growth of schools and hospitals for the baby boom” of late 1960‟s and 1970‟s has given way to the regulatory state. The United States has witnessed more governance in place of directly performing government, more privatization and contracting out, more volunteerism, and more third – party government. The values of public purpose had receded to pave way to the value of private interest (Frederickson 1989). The period has also witnessed the prevalence of the homelessness and poverty and those have become serious problems for the U.S. once again. Further, the discipline of public administration has become much larger, interdisciplinary, analytically and theoretically sophisticated.

The second conference includes many individuals who have been trained in policy analysis and policy studies, economics, planning, urban studies, and law. The conference was practical in comparison to the previous conference, which was radical and confrontational one. The themes like ethics, social equity, human relations, reconciling public administration and democracy and general concern for the academic field were retained and deliberated and that has provided continuity in intellectual interest. The themes such as leadership, constitutional and legal perspective, technology policy and economic perspectives come up for the first time (or not so significant in first conference) and made the conference unique in its own.

The Minnowbrook II which was held in September, 1988 was attended by sixty scholars and practitioners, all belonging to policy sciences as much as history, economics, sociology, political sciences and public administration. The scholars who attended the 1988 conference came from a background and context far different from those of their other colleagues. The themes developed at 1988 largely focus on the current and future vision in the field of public administration.

The purpose of Minnowbrook II was not only to facilitate a general examination of the future of Public Administration but also to determine whether important differences exist between people who entered public administration in the 1960‟s and those who entered in 1980‟s. Frederickson has made a comparison of the two conferences on certain counts and summarized form of that is presented here:

1. The number of female participants were 14 in II where as it was only one in I.
2. Minorities were less attracted to public administration in 1988 than they were in 1968.
3. Almost the 1960‟s entire group were in their 30‟s at the time of Minnowbrook I but many of than were in their 40‟s or early 50‟s having entered in public administration after working in other occupations in Minnow-II.
4. At Minnowbrook I almost all the participants were educated in political science but on the other hand at Minnowbrook II individuals trained in policy analysis and policy studies, economics, planning, urban studies and law.
5. The mood, tone, and feeling of two conferences were different. It was contentious, confrontational and revolutionary in 1968 whereas it was more civil and more practical in 1988. It was anti behavioural in dialogue in 1968 but 1988 it was more receptive to the contributions of behavioural science to public administration. However, both conferences were theoretical.
6. The 1968 themes were summarized by Frank Marini and Frederickson as relevance, anti positivism, dissatisfaction with the state of discipline, personal morality and ethics, innovation, improved human relations, reconciling public administration and democracy, client centered responsiveness and social equity. The 1988 also included many of the same themes, most particularly ethics, social equity, human relations, reconciling public administration and democracy and concern for the state of the field. However, several 1988 themes were not as prominent as they were in 1968, notably leadership, constitutional and legal perspectives, technology, policy and economic perspectives. Unlike the first conference, Minnow II made a conscious effort to conclude, to summarize, to integrate and to compare.

Guy summarized the deliberations of the conference under eleven themes, five of which were the legacy of Minnowbrook I and other six focused on the current and future visions of the field. These are:

1. The concerns for social equity that predominated at Minnowbrook-I are largely at peace now.
2. The papers and deliberations advocated a strong consensus about democratic values, like ethics, accountability and leadership, in public administration and the centrality of public administration to promote those values.
3. The debate between the normative and the behaviourist perspective has not diminished. The discussion on paradigmatic issues in field emphasized how to get the anticipated objectives in public administration. But, Guy states that “As a field, public administration is still in disagreement about how to get there”. She believes that “people are able to attend to issues longer and think harder about them when information is presented in the context of emotion, because it serves as a hot dressing emphasizing the issues in question”.
4. Diversity in society and in the work force was accepted as a basic value among participants at Minnowbrook II. The diversity was identified in three main contexts, viz.: the issue of Generalists vs Specialists; Social, Ethnic, and Sexual diversity; and Gender diversity. Guy observed that, “The gender diversity issue was one that was clearly a 1980‟s interpretation”. In other words, the feminist theory has started to influence the literature of bureaucracy and managerial decision making during the decade and therefore it has also affected the discussions there in the conference. The Minnow Brook II has in real sense reflected “the beginning traces of a more heterogeneous work force, at least from the gender dimension”.
5. The tone of Minnow Brook II was one of constrained hopefulness. Mary Ellen Guy states: “Government is no longer seen as the train on which people want to ride”. The public servants were considered “more as conservators than as change agents” and “privatization was accepted in many of those fields, erstwhile considered to be in the domain of the government or public administration only. Holzer states : “Society increasingly looks to the private and not for profit sectors to help to solve collective problems. Public Administration must exercise leadership in restoring the centrality of government in collective problem solving as a means of preserving constitutional values, as a way of countering values, as a way of countering parochialisms, and as an avenue for gaining the confidence of sometimes condescending corporate and political critics”. Thus the role of private sector in societal life was accepted the centrality under the leadership of government but with normative concerns.
6. One of the discussion groups brought the idea that “Rules of the road” must be followed in public administration. It means that the „visions‟ in public administration needs to be of “near future” instead of “meaningful long term” one. The group advocated it on two grounds: First such vision are constrained and judged as more realistic and second it is immensely lesser problematic as the public administration performs in complex environment and it “is neither reasonable nor perhaps even possible” to work with long term vision.
7. The participants were reluctant to accept that focus on certain issues is in far greater deteails in other disciplines (like Human development, social psychology, economics, engineering and perhaps even management) than in public administration. Thus, a professional “ethnocentricity” or parochialism prevailed, indicating that public administration as a field is having a hard time dealing with its interdisciplinary roots.
8. There was strong adverse attitude towards business in the conference. Papers and discussion exhibited a disdainful acceptance of capitalism and business. How best the “business” and “public sectors” can serve the mankind was accepted as the challenge of public administration.
9. The Minnow Brook II also exhibited the concern for more innovative and productive personnel system.
10. There was unwillingness to address technological issues.
11. The politics/administration debate was alive and participants were unwilling to be specific on what the government should do or what it should not do.

In spite of all, the conference could offer little attention to the realities of public administration. It failed to visualize the vision how public service can function at its best with in what promises to be a future declining market share, as the United States faces the reality of a global economy and a changing industrial base”. However, Holzer states : “Given the pragmatism evident as Minnow Brook II, one might also conclude (however reluctantly) that a new realism might more effectively serve the public and public sector for the next two decades”.

Mary Timmey Bailey observed that “In contrast to Minnow brook I, which challenged Public Administration to become proactive with regard to social issue, “Minnow II retreated from an action perspective to cerebral examination of democracy, ethics, responsibility, philosophy and even economics. Finally, Mary Ellen Guy states that “the discipline of Public Administration is on a stable footing”. The discipline “seems to be at peace with its core values and its sense of relevance and purpose”. It has also accepted democratic values and has accorded pre-eminent attention to the issue of social equity.

Minnowbrook III

The public administration and governance has witnessed many challenges and changes after Minnowbrook II. The notable among those are:

1. The New Public Management (NPM) approach to governance, a normative conceptualization of public administration has emerged.
2. The publication of Reinventing Government by Osborne and Gaebler (1992) – redefined the functions of the Government and favoured an “Entrepreneurial Government” for bringing radical changes with the focus on de-bureaucratization, democratization, and decentralization of the administrative processes in the interest of the citizens.
3. The process of Liberalization, Privatization and Globalized has made the Public Administration as „Enabler‟ or „Facilitator‟.

Thus, there were extraordinary changes in the world in the last 20 years or so and it is argued that public administration is reasserting its role and leading the way in addressing cotemporary problems. Therefore the mission of Minnowbrook III was to “critique the current state of public administration public management and public service today and examine the future of the field”. The conference was held on 3-7 September 2008 and coordinated by Rosemary O‟Leary a distinguished Professor at Syracuse University and on the theme of „The Future of Public Administration, Public Management and Public Service around the World’. It was held in two phases and at the same venue, i.e., the Department of Public Administration, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

The first phase, a „pre conference workshop’ was attended by 56 new scholars at the original Minnow Brook conference site at Blue Mountain Lake, New York. The second phase was a larger and more traditional conference at Lake Placid, New York and attended by 220 participants from 13 countries. The papers/ articles of both phases are published in a book titled: “The Future of Public Administration Around the World: The Minnowbrook Perspective edited by Rosemary O‟Leary, David Van Slyke and Kim in 2010.

The important themes deliberated at the conference were:

1. The changes taken place in the field of Public Administration since 1968.
2. Optimism to draw theoretical and empirical paradigms based on the experiences of working with market oriented New Public Management practices since last thirty years and especially in the present collapsed market context.
3. Assessing influence on the development of a core theoretical base of public administration as a result of inter disciplinary interactions initiated since Minnowbrook I.
4. Examining the impact of network governance and collaborative public management on the public administration, public management and public service.
5. Understanding the role of globalization in the study and practice of public administration, public management and public service.

The Minnowbrook, accepted as the spirit of critical inquiry which is related to the question “what is the importance and relevance of what we do”?, a “key theme that came up over and over again at Minnow brook III”. There was a desire for the field of public administration “to make a positive difference in the world in a very concrete way” states Rosemary O‟Leary. Beth Gazley and David Van Slyke state that “Every participant viewed the Minnow brook III experience as an opportunity to raise questions about the relevance of the field or recommending a better integration of public administration research with social sciences, management, law and other disciplines”.

The focal areas of the conference were:

1. Academic –practitioner relations;
2. Democratic performance management;
3. Financial management;
4. Globalization/comparative perspectives;
5. Information technology & management;
6. Law, politics and public administration management;
7. Leadership;
8. Methods/interdisciplinary; networks; performance measurements;
9. Public administration values and theory;
10. Social equity & justice; and
11. Transparency and accountability

Academic –practitioner relations:

How the academic field of public administration is connected with the world of public administration practice. The issue was taken up at the Minnowbrook I, revisited in II and one of the dominant theme of Minnowbrook III. It will also persist further, opined Bushouse et. al. They consider that “there will always be two Pas”, however, “the divide between them might narrow over time”. This divide can be bridged by various means (like connecting research to practice etc.) and it can be best measured in terms of the impact of scholastic knowledge of the discipline on the practitioner and the practice of Public Administration. The scholars suggested that publishing summaries of research, creating open access online journals, establishing learning communities etc will help in connecting research and practice in the field.

It has also been suggested by Bushouse and others the future research in the field should more closely examine the extent to which the research actually impacts practice and how the research can be made more useful for practitioner. Therefore, there is need to create appropriate links to connect academics (theory) and practitioners (practice) in order to ensure the relevance and legitimacy of public administration with in academic and the larger world.

Democratic performance management:

The participants of Minnowbrook III “agree on the merit of an approach to public accountability that includes market based efficiency, programme performance, and law based democratic values such as equity and transparency”. Finally, an approach which is directed to achieve efficiency, effective and defendable public service delivery and that is also within the framework of constitutional democracy is required.

Financial Management:

The financial resources are life blood of public organizations. The financial resources determine the effectiveness of public service delivery networks, performance, entrepreneurial activities and to undertake reforms. Besides, “the Governments around the world are taking on unprecedented levels of debt, ownership of previously private industry (not so now in India) and other financial risks and responsibilities”. Thus, there is centrality of financial resources in the Government‟s functioning. But, the financial resources not managed in a way. These should be managed and therefore resulting in financial resources, the scholars at the conference deliberated that public financial management (PFM) receives little attention outside the PFM subfield Kioko et. al. found that except some note worthy exceptions , “research on PFM‟s traditional concerns – government accounting and auditing , debt policy and management, revenue forecasting ,tax administration, public procurement, and others- rarely appears in the mainstream PAM outlets. To a large degree, the opposite is also true. Many PFM specialists relegate the political, organizational and institutional context of their own work to the periphery.” It has created a disconnect between public Administration and Management and the management of public financial resources in public administration management has remained underappreciated or unrecognized. Therefore, “ the key concerns accounting and financial reporting, auditing, fiscal policy making , cost analysis, cash management and others can inform some of PAM‟s classic and contemporary questions”.

Globalization/comparative perspectives:

Globalization has its impact both on the theory and practice of public administration. It is well accepted now that every policy issue, domestic, national and international, cannot be confined to the national boundaries. Therefore, the issue was examined as Public Administration with a Global Perspective (PAGP). The PAGP is oriented “to advance knowledge building, address practical issues, improve public administration education, and ultimately, increase the relevancy of the field.” It also emphasizes “theory building that bridges “particularism” and “universalism” attending to observation in specific ethnic, cultural, and political contexts, while at the same time looking for greater explanatory power, wider practical implications, informed policy learning and transfer”. The aim is to serve global community, achieving higher theoretical acceptability and better satisfy practical demands in diverse and specific contexts. It is believed that “adopting a global perspective will make the field of public administration more relevant and vibrant in the quickly globalizing world”.

The PAGP “addresses the transnational connectedness, interdependence, and complexity of the field.” It is viewed as an approach and not desiquated to offer “a comprehensive theory” to “unity the study” or “a central democrating concept”. It aims to redefine the scope of Public Administration to be globally relevant in our activities of teaching, research and services. The PAGP will be useful in developing practical and acceptable global public politicize and encourage the innovation and diversity of Public Administration practices.

Therefore, Minnowbrook III advocates to move field toward Public Administration with a Global Perspective (PAGP) in order to ensure discipline‟s teaching, research and engagement more relevant to the changing reality of globalization. This kind of need is attributed to the fact that major policy issues cross national boundaries and can be better understood addressed with a global perspective.

First, we readily recognize that public administration both as an academic discipline and as a field of professional practice, has made tremendous strides in the last several decades and we have aggregate hope for the future of the field. Earlier conferences kept them confined to the knowledge and experience focused on United States which has not been fair for the process of building theories based on global experiences and different cross cultural settings definitely offer great explanatory power, have higher acceptability, and are more responsive to the demands in diverse and specific contexts”. 

The conference also encouraged a renaissance of comparative studies as the world has become increasingly interdependent. The essence of comparative approach is context sensitivity, that is, awareness that institutional and cultural context matters and should be incorporated in research. Contributions of this approach are practical for meeting curriculum needs, and theoretical in making research more rigorous, revealing underlying, often US oriented assumptions and exploring alternative contexts.

Law, politics and public administration management:

The Public Administration and its relationship with management and Law have been debated in all the three Minnowbrook conferences. In other words, the conflicts values of efficiency and performance viz.-a-viz. legal and democratic values such as accountability equality and transparency were debated by the scholars in prevailing context. The Minnowbrook III which has taken place in the environment of Market based reforms of New Public Management, emphasized the value of efficiency and performance in Public Administration. The values like legal and democratic mores such as accountability, equality, transparency, representativeness and values plurality receive relatively lesser emphasis. Many scholars found evidence that market based reforms continue to highlight the enduring relevance of the law/management tension in public administration research and practice. This state of affairs is “leading to crises of accountability, legitimacy and even harm to those most vulnerable in society” and “threatens to erode much to the democratic constitutional foundation upon which government rests”. Minnowbrook III like earlier Minnowbrooks did little to resolve it and it cannot be resolved “until scholars and practitioners pursue a more integrated approach”.

Leadership:

Getha-Taylor et.al. opine: “A central theme across all three Minnow brook gatherings ……………… has been the development of public administrators who truly makes a difference , who act as “agents of change” to transform public problems into solutions that reflects a commitment to public values”. In other words, there is a need to develop public leadership which is distinct from leadership and which strives for common good, for the purpose of certain public value. The participants in Minnow brook III argued “ for a heightened commitment to the study of public leadership, discuss conceptual challenges and offer propositions to direct future research”. They also emphasized “the development of public leadership capacity among current and future practitioners who answer the call of public service”. Hope that “ PA will take the charge to become the leading voice in public leadership research and practical development. 

Getha Taylor et. al. states, “Although the Minnowbrook tradition has called for public administration to embrace their role in producing public value, we believe that public administration has fallen short in its focus on a key area of scholarship integral to accomplishing this goal : the study of public leadership”. Therefore, “The time has come to invigorate the study of public leadership”. The public leadership is distinct from general leadership and meant for the common good and inculcating public value. Therefore, the participants in the Minnowbrook conference advocated the study of public leadership, discuss the conceptual challenges and offer propositions to direct future research on this theme. The conference provided certain propositions relating to the public leadership around the character, the function and the jurisdiction of public leadership.

Methods/interdisciplinary; networks; performance measurements:

Nesbit et.al. are of the opinion that the intellectual diversity of Public Administration, both in terms of method and theory, and the public relevance of Public Administration, offer both benefits and costs. Further, the institutional barriers also play an important role in shaping the public administration. But it is the commitment level of the individuals in the field has taken precedence over other factors and therefore the conference (Minnowbrook III) calls for the commitment on the part of scholars in the discipline to become change agents to shape the future intellectual diversity of the field. The scholars are appealed to “just get along” and make much stronger efforts to thoroughly integrate multiple theoretical paradigms across the discipline, the continue to improve the rigor of our work lest we become a discipline with breadth but no depth, and to embrace the public focus of our research as a way of binding different theoretical approaches and overpowering disciplinary fragmentation. 

The diversity in public administration calls for supporting the application of diverse and rigorous methodological approaches, to continue with the theoretical diversity and theoretical depth and promoting relevance.

Isett and others stated the focus on networks in public administration has grown rapidly in the past decade or so. Further, there have been policy networks ( a set of public agencies, legislative officers, and private sector organizations including interest groups , corporations , non profit etc.) collaborative networks (collection of government agencies, non profits and for profits that work together to provide a public good, service or value when a single public agency is unable to provide a public services in the desired qualities), and governance networks ( entities that fuse collaborative public goods and service provision with collective policy making) with which public administration has been able to deliver good to its citizens , after adopting the MPM or MPM like practices in governance.

Earlier, Moore (1995) pointed out that government no longer directly creates public “value” rather resorted to “third party governance” in response to the new public management , demand for more governance but less government in addition to many other contemporary factors. But, NPM could not address the problems which do not respect political, disciplinary and industrial boundaries and have become very common in the society. Networks attempt to fill up the insufficiencies of NPM by providing flexible structures, that are inclusive information rich and outside the scope of direct bureaucracy control.

The conference on the future of networks in public administration identified four areas of concern viz:

1. Other disciplines are farther along in the study of networks than public administration;
2. Public administration scholars need to faster close ties with technical disciplines for understanding technical aspects used in method and measures of governance; public administration requires complete meta studies of networks cases; and
3. PA scholars need to become more engaged with practitioners.

The performance is an important tool for enforcing accountability in public administration and post 1988 period has witnessed a widespread diffusion of such tools in it. Moynihan et. Al. has observed “that the increasing complexity of governance —— fundamentally affect both performance regime and governance”. They also found that the difficulties encountered by performance regimes tend to increase as we move away from traditional bureaucracies, towards networks and global governance. Further, the performance regimes have normative concerns. It appears that the traditional public administration is antagonistic toward effort to improve performance. But, it may not be true as 2008. Conference took a different perspective and concludes that performance regime offer in improving governance.

Nevertheless, I (Zhao ) disagree with the NPA perspective that public administration should be a proactive advocate for the “ powerless minorities”. In today‟s diverse world, we should realize that equity itself is value laden and cultural bounded, and even the definition of minorities is subjective. It is a key political question regarding whose interest to be promoted and to what level, which should be left for collective decision in a democratic society. Public administration should not be the judge of equity. Instead, it should act to reduce the information cost for the choice and access of public services, as a disseminator of practical knowledge, an interpreter of public issue, a clarifier of public preferences, and a facilitator of public interests.

Public administration values and theory; social equity & justice:

The advocacy for post positive approach emphasized the need to abandon value free and value neutral research and instead to cultivate an approach emphasizing social equity. Social equity means that Public Administration should become champion of underprivileged sections of the society.

Social equity‟s place within the academic field of public administration is rooted in the first Minnowbrook conference. Since then, “the concern for social equity has grown to the point where it now occupies a firm place within the academics, as well as the world of practice.” However, despite all gross social inequalities prevail all around us.

National Academy of Public Administration (2000, 11) standing Panel on Social Equity in Governance has defined social equity as “the fair, just and equitable management of all institutions serving the public directly or by contract, and the fair and equitable distribution of public service, and implementation of public policy and the commitment to promote fairness, justice and equity in the formation of public policy.”

Gooden and Portillo state that “the role of social equity in the proceedings of the Minnowbrook III conference was more aligned with its role during the second conference in 1988. Although social equity was self identified as discussion topic by participants at the start of conference proceedings, only out of total 56 attendees actively participated in group discussions on social equity”. This modest level of interest can be optimistically viewed as evidence of great advances that have been made in instilling the concern for social equity as an accepted core value and concern with in the field, but as those who participated in the working group on social equity pointed out during the conference, the field should not be so quick to assume that the advances that have been made are sufficient enough for the field to rest on its laurds.”

They were true in the sense as the research in public administration and policy revealed “substantial ethnic and gender based disparities in areas such as housing health care, employment, criminal justice and education.” Therefore, “time for renewed focus on social equity in both the practice and study of public administration” has been felt by Gooden and Portillo.

It is believed that three factors, namely: the need for conceptual clarity of the term social equity; the need for increased attention to social equity in the public administration curriculum; and the need for increased further methodological development in social equity research is essential required for instilling. It is argued by David W. Pitts that “improving social equity will require us to ask difficult empirical questions” as “some programs and policies simply preserve the states quo, whereas others will make social equities even work”. Hence “Policy makers cannot begin to repair these unsuccessful programmes unless we invest in the empirical research that is required to understand what work.” Therefore, “more informed suggestions” in order to accomplish social equity is emphasized.

Lastly, the scholars come out with a definition of public administration and defined it as “a socially embedded process of collection relationships, dialogue and action that promotes human flourishing for all”. But, the definition could not attend the issues like bureaucratic and democratic ethos, public interest and public value theory, public conflicts, capacity of electoral institutions. In other words, the definition is unable to connect citizens and government.

The Minnowbrook deliberations were summarized by Mathew Crenson in the following words: “Well it might be useful to try to sum up this under two general headings: First, are there any common themes under all this smoke of discussion reported to us; and second are they new?” First, I think there are common themes: Almost every group arrived at the conclusion that there ought to be greater emphasis upon normative concerns in Public administration, whether it should be value neutral or somewhat committed to policies or the value neutrality. That leads to the next question: what sorts of organizations must there be in order for change to be facilitated? Which leads to: what things should organizations respond to in changing, namely, the environment? Others seem to put greater emphasis upon environmental factors, consequences for the environment of things in the organization of administration. The question is, of course, whether there is agreement on all these things, and if there is, whether that is new.

Meaning of New Public Administration

The term new public administration simply means that there was a public administration which was old. Literally this is correct. But the fact is that with the change of all the major and minor aspects of society the administration of society has undergone changes, because the public administration is to cope with the changes. Otherwise it cannot meet the basic necessities of society.

In our analysis of the evolution of public administration, we have already noted that towards the end of the sixties of the last century people experienced in admin­istration developed, new paradigms of public administration were devised, and these were suggested to meet the new challenges of society. It has been suggested that the administrators must find out new methods of administration, otherwise the administrative structure will not be in a position to keep the momentum of change.

Whatever may the form of government be, there must exist an admin­istration. This is a fundamental notion and from this comes the notion of new public administration. It is to be noted here that the concept of new public administration first arose in America. Nicholas Henry says that in 1968 some enthusiastic administrators took an initiative to hold a conference for finding out ways which would be capable of dealing with new changes plaguing the administration of American society.

These enthusiasts found that the old public administration was “ineffective”. The time was quite crucial. The Second World War (1939-1945) completely changed the economic and social structure and the old administrative system could not deal with this change. So these new enthusiasts proposed that there had arisen the necessity of devising new methods of administration and the American administrationists call it new public administration.

Subject of New Public Administration

The public administration of pre-1960s was primarily concerned with the budgeting, efficiency, decision-making and the implementation of decisions. But the events of post-Second World War threw a challenge to these basic concepts or aspects of public administration. It was strongly felt that the whole public administration should be overhauled. The sponsors of new public administration raised some causes such as values, ethics, the development of individual member in the organisation.

Again, in the seventies of the last century, the concept of justice gained enormous importance. This issue of justice was raised by John Rawls in his famous work A Theory of Justice (Oxford 1971, Third edition 1999). John Rawls in his new theory of justice suggested that the “social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be everyone’s advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all”.

Rawls has further suggested that “each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others”. If we patiently analyse this new scheme of justice a complete change public administration is indispensable. Because without such a change in public administration justice can never be ensured for all persons of society. It is correct that John Rawls did not suggest any form of change in public adminis­tration and this is due to the fact that this was outside Rawls’s jurisdiction.

It is further to be noted that in the seventies of the last century liberalism started to assume new meaning and content. The old liberalism was incapable of meeting new challenges that surfaced in society. People wanted more liberty and less state restrictions. The exact role of the state would be like a night watchman. In earlier periods the state was aggressive, so was the public administration.

In the new era the power of the state should be drastically curtailed and the public administration must adjust itself with new philosophy-the philosophy of liberalism. The values, ethics, philosophy of liberalism are not devalued. There must exist bureaucracy. But the purpose and function of the bureaucracy must be to protect freedom and ensure justice. A concept was circulated in the academic market and it is new bureaucracy.

Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia was published in (1974) and John Rawls’s Political Liberalism (1993) combinedly threw light on the nature and functions of state and all these considerably influenced the public administration. It is to be specially noted that all these works do not deal with public administration but their centre of attention was modern liberalism and justice. But all these are to be achieved through the instrumentality of state which means administration of states.

Naturally in one form or other public administration comes to be a potent factor. The new public administration wants to emphasise that it must have its own philosophy, ethics and value system which shall not stand on the furtherance of liberalism. Nozick imagined of a new state which will be an anarchical state and it will be the culmination of liberalism. Thus new public administration is embedded with liberalism, justice and crucial role of state in the attainment of these principles.

The new public administration does not rule out the decision-making and the execution of decision as its function. But the periphery of new public administration has expanded very considerably. An important aspect of new public administration is that there shall exist bureau­cracy but the top bureaucrats must change their outlook and mentality so that administration can meet the needs of people of new age.

New Public Administration and Globalisation

In the perspective of new public administration, I wish to elaborate the issue. During the period of old public administration there was no existence of globalisation and liberalisation and, naturally, the public administration, that existed before the seventies of the last century was not concerned with these two issues. Henry rightly observes, “Beginning in the 1980s, a number of trends accelerated that harbour the possibility for fundamental change in how we perceive government and its administration. We group these trends under the rubrics of globalisation, devolution and redefinition”. In the age of globalisation and liberalisation no state, big or small, can be treated as being separated from the rest of the world.

Very few multinational corporations situated in USA and UK are practically controlling the world economy. The public administration and organisation of various countries are gradually coming under their influence and these states are rather forced to readjust or remodel their administrative structures to make room for the entry of globalisation and liberalisation. This they are doing for their own survival. Not only economy is influenced by globalisation, internet, world­wide environment, travel and communication have gradually come under the influence of globalisation.

All these are challenging the time-old administrative systems. The result is public administration is forced to accept the influence of globalisation. The impact of globalisation in national economy and public administration can be seen in another sector also. Reluctantly or willingly the governments of many countries and America in particular are relinquishing responsibilities towards public administration or administrative responsibilities and this creates a vacuum in the sphere of public administration. But this vacuum cannot continue indefinitely. A new model of public administration was badly needed and it is new public administration.

Minnow-Brook Conference and New Public Administration

In my analysis of the development of public administration I have already referred to the Minnow-brook Conference. The author of the article Public Administration: Theory and Practice Writes: New Public Administration Movement starting from the 1968 Minnow-brook Conference began to assume new shapes and dimensions.

The scholars and public administration specialists attending the conference strongly felt that the advancement of new technology and its impact on state activities, change in the outlook of men, the unprecedented expansion of the study of political science have created a situation which requires a change in the subject of public administration.

Certain conclusions were framed by the specialists who attended the Minnow-brook Conference in 1968. Even the relationship between political science and public administration was discussed. The young scholars who attended the conference felt that public administration was no longer an ordinary branch of political science, it can reasonably claim a separate status in the vast field of social science.

The second Minnow-brook Conference was held in 1988. It is again a landmark event in the field of new public administration. Landmark in the sense that the term new public administration was first used by the enthusiasts and energetic scholars of political science and administrationists in 1971 and again in 1988 the concept was elaborately discussed in the perspective of several incidents or new atmosphere.

The US President Reagan introduced several administrative mea­sures to curtail the quantum of state intervention in economic and social affairs. It is called New Right theory of Neoliberalism. In the post-Second World War period J.M. Keynes suggested state intervention to fight the economic crisis and this was accepted by large number of experts as an effective means against economic crises. Reagan in the USA boldly advocated that the state has very little to do in economic spheres and, not only in this order to put the state economy in right order the expenditure for social welfare measures must be drastically curtailed or brought down to the minimum level.

The Reaganism in USA or Thatcherism in Britain put heavy stress on public administration. There was a clear conflict between public purpose and private purpose or private interest. The state shall perform minimum work for the public. Private persons shall be allowed and encouraged to do those jobs which were previously done by the state. The Second Minnow-brook Conference focused its attention to this very aspect. There was also thematic discussion in the Second Minnow-brook Conference and this changed, to a large extent, the contents and approach of public administration.

The Second Minnow-brook Conference 1988 adopted several proposals relating to public administration. Some of them are:

(1) If is the duty of public administration to give special emphasis on the normative aspects of administration. The participants at the conference wanted to say that the public administration should not be concerned with what has happened, but what should happen. The classical or old public administration emphasised not on the normative aspects and that was its drawback.

(2) If public administration starts to pay more attention to normatism or normatic character of public administration as well as ethics, morality or values the public administrators must also be prepared to reformulate the policies and methods of administration. In other words, the accountability of public admin­istrators shall be to normative aspect of public administration.

(3) Another decision adopted by the conference was human society is constantly changing and the administrators must take into account these changes and they will build up policies in the background of these changes. In other words, the administrative system will change in accordance with the change of society.

(4) I have already referred to John Rawls’s theory of justice and its relation with public administration. The Second Minnow-brook Conference (1988) sug­gested that the public administration must aim at the realisation of social justice and equality. For greater justice, redistribution of wealth is essential and the burden of that task inevitably falls upon the administration.

(5) In past there was a boundary wall between general public and admin­istrators. That wall is required to be abolished. The public administrators ought to be accountable to the public. This accountability will bring about a change in the whole system of public administration.

At the beginning of the seventies of the last century the American Academy of Political and Social Science held a conference and its chief aim was to discuss the theoretical and practical aspects in great detail. The conference also emphasised the scope of public administration.

The members of the conference thought the public administration must be released from the confinement of old thought and ideas. To speak the truth the scholars attending the conference were serious about the role of public administration in changing society. The attitude and tempera­ment of the scholars was that the subject must be treated as a separate discipline of clear status and outlook. This outlook helped to build up the foundation of New Public Administration and this has both academic and practical aspects.

Aspect of New Public Administration

An important aspect of new public administration is the public administration has achieved considerable progress, so far as its subject matter is concerned. Under such circumstances it should no longer be treated simply as a “branch of political science. The scholars and administrationists in unequivocal terms demanded that it should be regarded as a special subject. Its subject matter shall be the various aspects of administration—both public and private.

Public administration is a separate discipline. The administrators must be specially trained in order to be good administrators. The methods and subjects of training shall be decided by the public administration. If necessary the public administration shall have freedom from necessary principles of other subjects.

Public administration is not a science and for that reason the subject matter of this subject has no scope to be called a science in the sense physics and chemistry are sciences. But the term science shall be used in liberal sense and public administration shall be called science in that liberal sense.

In 1970, the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Admin­istration was founded. This body demanded that public administration could properly call itself, and increasingly be recognised as a separate self-aware field of study. This approach clearly indicates that numerous developments that took place in the post-Second World War period directly or indirectly came under the aegis of public administration. The subject matter has increased, so to speak, beyond any imagination. I have already noted that public administration is a separate subject. The National Surveys conducted in the seventies have argued that the separating of public administration from other subjects is real and justified. The expansion of subject matter demands this.

New public management is a part of the public administration system in which the management activities are conducted in public interest. The term ‘new public management’ was introduced in the late 20th century to counter the problems related to globalisation, worldwide contention, and automation changes in the industry. The main function of new public management is to control the financial entities and accelerate efficiency in public administration.

Different marketing tools like Total Quality Management, Operational Research Techniques, and Objective Management are used in new public management to get the maximum output from the private sector. There are many fields of public management systems like transportation, public health services, education, enforcement of law and order, etc.

Traditional Public Management

Before New public management, the traditional public management functioned in sectors. This conventional public management system had some limitations, due to which the new traditional public management was introduced. The limitations of traditional public management are listed below.

1. The traditional system of public management was not that effective. Different persons were authorised for a function and kept on changing due to the change of governance. This authority change affects the efficiency of function. 
2. In the traditional public management system of management, the policies were made at a higher level but could not be implemented at ground level with full potential.
3. For public administration, the management authority should be free to make the decisions for a better outcome. In traditional public management, they were not supposed to make the decision or make it very rarely.
4. The main limitation of traditional public management was that it is led from the centre, restricting the free flow of transmission.
5. Lack of motivational sources and activities for the public officers resulted in low efficiency in their work while implementing the policies.
6. Traditional public management followed the same pattern or format while implementing a scheme. It did not focus on the achievement of goals.

Beginning of New Public Management

The ending of the 20th century was the beginning of new public management. In 1991, new public management was introduced by Hood and Jackson, scholars from the United Kingdom and Australia. While working in the public administration sector, they introduced the new public management system to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional public management system and enhance efficiency. 

This system resolves the many problems based on globalisation, worldwide contention and automation change in the industry in the last decade of the 20th century. New public management is the mixture of several business approaches which consist of many tools. 

Advantages of New Public Management 

The new public management system was introduced to overcome the boundaries of the traditional public management system and enhance efficiency. The advantages of new public management (NPM) are listed below.

• NPM forces the new technologies to get the maximum output from a function. This system boosts the technology revolution
• In the transportation sector, the NPM system accelerates material flow in national and international markets by generating competition
• New public management focuses on customer satisfaction and serves the customer first compared to the traditional system
• Employees of this system are provided with the training and motivated and regular bases to make their working style effective
• The NPM system is goal-oriented, which improves the achievement of goals
• The NPM system provides the freedom of action to the individual, which increases the efficiency of effectiveness

Differences between the Traditional Public Administration and New Public Management

In many sectors, a new public management term is used in place of public administration. The differences between traditional and new public management are listed below.

The Approach of New Public Management

To compete with the private sector at the national and international level, new public management focuses on a modern approach to management. This approach to new public management is listed below.

• Technical approach: The new public management system allows creativeness in management. It approaches implementing new ideas to achieve the targets effectively
• Optimistic approach: New public management encourages the public administration’s flexible, respective and problem-solving system
• Anti-hierarchical approach: This public management system provides freedom to individuals, making this system an anti-hierarchical system

Conclusion

New public management is the approach to use the different management techniques used in the private sector in public administration. The concept of new public management helps to run public service corporations in an economically efficient manner. The NPM system boosts product delivery and manages the financial goals.

Introduction

The New Public Service(NPS) approach is the most coherent approach to the study of public administration in 21st century. It starts with the premise that the focus of public management should be citizens, community, and civil society. In this conception , the primary role of public servants is to help citizens articulate and meet their shared interests rather than to control or steer society( Denhardt and Denhardt,2000). This is in sharp contrast to the philosophical premise of New Public Management approach in which transactions between public managers and customers reflect individual self-interest and are framed by market principles. It is also different from old public administration approach where citizen related to the bureaucracy as clients or constituents and were treated as passive of top –down policy making and service delivery mechanism( Bourgon 2007). Control and hierarchy rather than plurality and engagement these relationships.

The New Public Service model approaches public management from the advantage point of democratic theory, undertaking on the notion of active and involved citizenship. Citizens look beyond narrow selfinterest to the wider public interest and role of public officials is to facilitate opportunities for strengthening citizen engagement in finding solutions to societal problems. Public managers need to acquire skills that go beyond the capacity for controlling or steering society in pursuit of policy solutions to focus more on brokering , negotiating and resolving complex problems in partnership with citizens. In seeking to address wider societal needs and develop solutions that are consistent with public interest, governments will need to be open and accessible , accountable, and responsive, and operate to serve citizens. Prevailing forms of accountability need to extend beyond the formal accountability of public servants to elected officials in the management and delivery of budgets and programs to accommodate a wider set of accountability relationships with citizens and communities.

Finally, the NPS approach also asserts that importance of public service ethos, emphasizing the values and motivations of public servants dedicated to the wider public good.

Roots of the New Public Service

 Like the New Public Management and the old public administration, the New Public Service consists of many diverse elements , and many different scholars and practitioners have contributed , often in disagreement with one another. Yet certain general ideas seem to characterize this approach as a normative model and to distinguish it from others. While the New Public Service has emerged both in theory and in the innovative and advanced practices of many exemplary public managers . Certainly the New Public Service can lay claim to an impressive intellectual heritage, including, in public administration, the work of Dwight Waldo (1948), and in political theory, the work of Sheldon Wolin (1960). However, there are more contemporary precursors of the New Public Service, including (1) theories of democratic citizenship ; (2) model of community and civil society ; and (3) organizational humanism and discourse theory.

Seven principle of the NPS approach

 Theorists of citizenship, community and civil society, organizational humanists, and postmodernist public administrationists have helped to establish a climate in which it makes sense today to talk about a New Public Service . There are a number of practical lessons that the New Public Service suggests for the New public Management and the old public administration in public administration. These lessons are not mutually exclusive, rather they are mutually reinforcing. Among these, seven lessons are most important. These are following :-

1. SERVE, RATHER THAN STEER: An increasingly important role of the public servant is to help citizens articulate and meet their shared interests, rather than to attempt to control pr steer society in new directions.
2. THE PUBLIC INTEREST IS THE AIM , NOT THE BY-PRODUCT: Public administrators must contribute to building a collective , shared notion of the public interest. The goal is not to find quick solutions driven by individual choirs. Rather, it is the creation of shared interests and shared responsibility.
3. THINK STRATEGICALLY, ACT DEMOCRATICALLY: Policies and programs meeting public needs can be most effectively and responsibly achieved through collective efforts and collaborative.
4. SERVE CITIZEN, NOT CUSTOMERS: The public interest results from a dialogue about shared values, rather than the aggregation of individual self-interests . Therefore, public servants do not merely respond to the demands of “customer”, but focus on building relationships of trust and collaboration with and among citizens.
5. ACCOUNTABILITY ISN’T SIMPLE: Public servants should be attentive to more than market; they should also attend to statutory and constitutional law, community values, political norms, professional standards, and citizen interests.
6. VALUE PEOPLE, NOT JUST PRODUCTIVITY: Public organizations and the networks in which they participate are more likely to succeed in the long run if they are operated through processes of collaboration and shared leadership based on respect for all people.
7. Value citizenship and public service above entrepreneurship: The public interest is better advanced by public servants and citizens committed to making meaningful contributions to society rather than by entrepreneurial acting as if public money were their own.

Implications and Conclusions

From a theoretical perspective, New Public Service offers an important and viable alternative to both the traditional and the now-dominant managerialist models. It is an alternative that has been built on the basis of theoretical explorations and the practical innovations. The result is a normative model, comparable to other such models. While debates among theorists will continue, and administrative practitioners will test and explore new possibilities, the commitments that emerge will have significant implications for practice. The actions that public administrators take will differ markedly depending on the types of assumptions and principles upon which those actions are based.

Decades ago, Herbert Kaufman(1956) suggested that while administrative institutions are organized and operated in pursuit of different values at different times, during the period in which one idea is dominant, others are never totally neglected. Building on this idea, it makes sense to think of one normative model as prevailing at any point in time, with the other playing a somewhat lesser role within the context of prevailing view. Currently, the New Public Management and its surrogates have been established as the dominant paradigm in the field of governance and public administration. Certainly a concern for democratic citizenship and the public interest has not been fully lost, but rather has been subordinated.

In terms of the normative models, New Public Service clearly seems most consistent with the basic foundations of democracy. New Public Service provides a framework within which other valuable techniques and values, such as the best ideas of the old public administration or the New Public Management, might be played out. While this debate will surely continue for many years, for the time being, the New Public Service provides a rallying point around which we might envision a public service based on and fully integrated with citizen discourse and the public interest.

Meaning of Organization

Organization is the foundation upon which the whole structure of management is erected. Organization is associated with developing an outline where the overall work is divided into manageable components in order to facilitate the achievement of objectives or goals. Thus, organization is the structure or mechanism that enables living things to work together. In a static sense, an organization is a structure or machinery manned by group of individuals who are working together towards a common goal. Examples of organization are Corporations, governments, non-government organizations, armed forces, non-profit organizations etc.

The term organization has been used in four different senses;

1. Organization as Framework of Relationships: Organization refers to the structure and interactions among various job positions which are created to realize certain objectives.
2. Organization as a process: Organization is viewed as a dynamic process and a managerial activity which is vital for planning the utilization of company’s resources.
3. Organization as a System: Organization is also viewed as a system. System concepts recognize that organizations are made up of components, each of which has exclusive properties, abilities and reciprocated associations. The constituent elements of a system are linked together in such complex ways that actions taken by one individual have far reaching effects on others.
4. Organization as a Group of Persons: Organization is very often viewed as a group of persons contributing their efforts towards certain goals.

Definitions of Organization

• “Organizations may be defined as a group of individuals large or small thetre cooperating under the direction of executive leadership in accomplishment of certain common object.” – Keith Davis
• “Organization is a system of cooperative activities of two or more persons.” – Chester Barnard
• “Organization is the form of every human association for the attainment of a common purpose.” – Mooney and Reily
• “Organization is a harmonious adjustment of specialized parts for the accomplishment of some common purpose or purposes.” – Haney
• “In its broadest sense, organization refers to the relationship between the various factors present in the given endeavor. Factory organization concerns itself primarily with the internal relationships within the factory such as responsibilities of personnel arrangement and grouping of machines and material control. From the standpoint of enterprise as a whole, organization is the structural relationship between various factors in an enterprise.”- Spriegel

Need / Importance of Organization

A renowned industrialist of U.S.A, Andrew Carnegie when sold his company ‘United States Steel Corporation’, showed his confidence in organization by saying “Take away our factories, take away our plants, our avenues of transportation, our money, leave nothing but our organization and we shall establish better factories.” Since ages and all walks of life, organization has been playing a significant role. The importance of organization is as stated below.

1. A tool for achieving objectives: Organization is an important tool in the hands of management for accomplishing the objectives of an enterprise.
2. It facilitates administration and management: A sound organization increases efficiency, avoids duplication of work, avoids delay in work, improves managerial skills and motivates employees to perform their duties.
3. It ensures optimum use of human resource: Good organization establishes individuals with interests, knowledge, skills, abilities and viewpoints.
4. It enhances creativity: A well-conceived and comprehensive organization is the source of creative thinking and initiation of new ideas.
5. Prevents Corruption: Enterprises which lack sound organization most of the times have problem of corruption. Sound organization helps to prevent corruption by raising morale of the employees. As a result of which employees are encouraged to work with higher efficiency, commitment and honesty.
6. Fosters growth of enterprise: Good organization plays a key role not only in growth but also in the expansion and diversification of an enterprise.
7. Eliminates overlapping and duplication of efforts: In a situation, where the distribution of work is not clearly identified and the work is performed in a haphazard manner there will be duplication and overlapping of efforts. As a good organization requires that the work be clearly assigned amongst employees, such overlapping and duplication is to be eliminated.
8. Coordination: Various jobs and positions are linked together by structural relationship of the organization. The organizational process exercises its due and balanced emphasis on the coordination of different activities.

Principles of Organization

For timely and systematic completion of work it is must for every organization to adopt some techniques or principles. Thus these principles would be the deciding factor for the success or failure of an organization.

1. Principle of Objective:All the enterprises whether large or small, set certain central objectives. Every element of the organization and organization as whole should be geared to the central objectives identified by the enterprise.
2. Principle of Specialization: Precise division of work facilitates specialization. According to this principle, division of work among the employees should be based on their knowledge, skills, abilities, capabilities and interests. This would lead to specialization which would in turn lead to efficiency, quality and elimination of wastage of resources.
3. The Scalar Principle: This principle is sometimes referred to as the chain command. There must be clear lines of authority running from the top to bottom of the organization and linking all the individuals in the organization.
4. The Principle of Authority: Authority is an important ingredient of the organization structure. It is the tool by which the manager can create an environment where an individual can perform with greater efficiency.
5. The Principle of Span of Control: This principle states that there is a limit to the number of subordinates that report to one superior. Supervision of too many people can lead to trouble and confusion. Also the superior will not be able to spare time to supervise each of his subordinate. It will also lead to increased complexity of the organization structure. The span of control depends upon a number of considerations. It is easy to supervise a large number of subordinates involved in routine jobs and working in the same room, whereas it is difficult to supervise highly diverse and specialized personnel scattered widely. The ability of the employee, their willingness to assume responsibility and the attitude of management towards delegating and decentralization should also be analyzed in detail while making a decision on span of control.
6. The Principle of Unity of Command: This principle is basically about avoiding dual reporting. It states that every individual employee working in the organization should be kept in the supervision of one boss only. This principle eliminates the possibility of conflicts in instructions and fosters a feeling of personal responsibility for work.
7. The Principle of Definition: Each individual in the organization should be made aware about his / her responsibilities, duties, authorities and relations with the other job positions in the organization structure.
8. Principle of Unity of Direction: The basic motive for the existence of organization is the attainment of certain objectives. Major objectives should be split into functional activities and there should be one objective and one plan for each group of people.
9. The Principle of parity of Authority and Responsibility: The responsibility for execution of work must be accompanied by the authority to control and direct the means of doing the work.
10. The Principle of Supremacy of Organizational Objectives: The organizational goals and objectives should be given wide publicity within the organization. The people contributing to it should be made to understand that enterprise objectives are more valuable and significant and one should give higher priority to organization’s objectives in comparison to personal motives.

Structure of an Organisation

An organization is a collection of people who work together to attain specified objectives. There are two types of organization structure, that can be formal organization and informal organization. An organisation is said to be formal organisation when the two or more than two persons come together to accomplish a common objective, and they follow a formal relationship, rules, and policies are established for compliance, and there exists a system of authority.

On the other end, there is an informal organisation which is formed under the formal organisation as a system of social relationship, which comes into existence when people in an organisation, meet, interact and associate with each other. In this article excerpt, we are going to discuss the major differences between formal and informal organisation.

Definition of Formal Organization

By the term formal organisation, we mean a structure that comes into existence when two or more people come together for a common purpose, and there is a legal & formal relationship between them. The formation of such an organisation is deliberate by the top level management. The organisation has its own set of rules, regulations, and policies expressed in writing.

The basic objective of the establishment of an organisation is the attainment of the organisation’s goal. For this purpose, work is assigned, and authorities are delegated to each member and the concept of division of labour and specialisation of workers are applied and so the work is assigned on the basis of their capabilities. The job of each is fixed, and roles, responsibilities, authority and accountability associated with the job is clearly defined.

In addition to this, there exists a hierarchical structure, which determines a logical authority relationship and follows a chain of command. The communication between two members is only through planned channels.

Types of formal organization structure

• Line Organization
• Line and Staff Organization
• Functional Organization
• Project Management Organization
• Matrix Organization

Definition of Informal Organization

An informal organisation is formed within the formal organisation; that is a system of interpersonal relationships between individuals working in an enterprise, that forms as a result of people meet, interact and associate with one another. The organisation is created by the members spontaneously, i.e. created out of socio-psychological needs and urge of people to talk. The organisation is featured by mutual aid, cooperation, and companionship among members.

In an informal organisation, there are no defined channels of communication, and so members can interact with other members freely. They work together in their individual capacities and not professional.

There is no defined set of rules and regulations that govern the relationship between members. Instead, it is a set of social norms, connections, and interaction. The organisation is personal i.e. no rules and regulations are imposed on them, their opinions, feelings, and views are given respect. However, it is temporary in nature, and it does not last long.

Difference between Formal and Informal Organisation