Public Administration An Image Problem - 1432 Words

Public administration often suffers from an image problem. Society has constructed a caricature of stuffy bureaucrats who are only concerned with restrictive and complicated procedures just waiting to obstruct efficient government, however, this caricature couldn’t be further removed from the reality of the work of public administration and administrators. While public administration has it’s roots in the early twentieth century as a rather droll academic pursuit it has evolved through the decades to meet modern needs. It must be emphasized that the profession of public administration does not have a clear and simple definition, but in short, covers a wide breadth of services. These services primarily concern the management of government†¦show more content†¦There are four core skills that are the foundation of the profession and these skills are: leadership, management, and the political and technical aspects of administration. One could consider these core skills to be the foundation of public administration and the four major functions of organization, personnel administration, decision making, and budget and finance to be the building blocks. It should be noted that having a deep understanding of these skills in relation to the major functions of the profession is essential to the success of any public administrator . The principles that govern public administration often have a level of reciprocity and build upon each other. One such principle is organization theory. At it’s most basic, the principle of organization theory is about structure and process, which are two things all administrators must become comfortable with. It answers the questions of how departments should be structured, how they report and how positions and jobs relate to each other, and what other factors should be considered. To answer those questions different schools of thought have developed as the study of public administration expanded and deepened. These schools of thought include classical management theory which attempts to identify how jobs and organizations can be structured to be more efficient, or the behavioral school of management which