Konstantinos M. Karyotakis
Maria Bakatsaki
Vassilis Moustakis
Technical University of Crete,
Greece
The Entrepreneurial Facet of Public Administration
Sinteza 2015
16-17 April 2015
Belgrade, Serbia
Overview
• Public administration
• Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial behavior
in public sector
• Who is entrepreneur in the public sector?
• The model of corporate entrepreneurship
• Organizational learning
The public administration is characterized by
high levels of risk aversion and resistance to
change, limited sources, lack of direction, vision
and management measurement, political
disputes and legal restrictions.
• Although the public sector is conservative,
bureaucratic and characterized by slow motion
rate, the concept of entrepreneurship in this
sector exists since the 1960s.
• Nowadays, maybe more than ever, there is a
need of adoption entrepreneurial behavior and
attitudes in order the society to become more
sustainable.
Definition of Entrepreneurship
• French economist Jean Baptiste Says (1767-1832)
supports that: “The entrepreneur shifts economic
resources out of an area of lower and into an area
of higher productivity and greater yield”.
• Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter (18831950) considers as entrepreneurs the innovators
who drive the “creative-destructive” process of the
capitalism.
• American economist Peter Drucker (1909-2005)
stresses that: “The entrepreneur always searches
for change, responds to it and exploits it as an
opportunity”.
• Entrepreneurship is the driving force for economic and
social development worldwide.
• Empirical data unveiled that entrepreneurial practices
and behavior in public sector induce mostly non-for
profit benefits, increasing social welfare more than
personal or economic objectives and creating added
value to the provided services.
Entrepreneurship may happen to organizations of
any size or type. It is a continuous process whose
results should be evaluated in the long-term.
It identifies market opportunities under existing
political conditions, optimizes the performance of
public sector, encouraging innovation, and urges the
parties to risk taking, as well as to proper
management of resources. It reduces public
expenditures and creates growth.
The entrepreneurial behavior in public sector drives to:
• ability to avoid bureaucracy
• strategic vision
• creation of an energetic environment
• change of orientation
Added value is created in an organization and the
social welfare is increased
The entrepreneur of the public sector:
• deals with the introduction of innovations trying to
increase the productivity, the efficiency and the
effectiveness of procedures and services,
providing better quality citizen’s services,
• is result of management, leadership principles and
strategies in public organizations,
• are employees who can imply innovative solutions
to the needs and problems of citizens.
Adopting entrepreneurial & innovative attitudes and
behavior:
• Service, customer and employee satisfaction is improved,
• there are more appropriate reward systems and
incentives,
• there are better internal procedures,
• improve communication and human
management relations.
resources
The model of corporate entrepreneurship in the public sector
Internal environment of
public sector organizations
▫ Structure
▫ Rewards & incentives
▫ Decision making & control
▫ Culture
▫ Risk taking
▫ Foresight/ prevention/
pro-activeness
External environment
of public sector
organizations
▫ Change
▫ Complexity
▫ Munificence
Corporate
Entrepreneurship
▫ Innovation
Cycle of organizational learning
Change and
entrepreneurship
(What should be
differentiated to appear?)
Organizational
development
(What steps should be
taken to increase the
efficiency?)
Organizational
experience (What really
happens?)
Thoughts and evaluation
(of past experiences)
In short
In public sector, generally, there is a need for culture
change of the outdated bureaucratic procedures in order
flexibility, innovation and entrepreneurship to be increased.
Simultaneously, there is a desire to maintain those
practices and procedures which are necessaries to ensure
the quality of citizen services.
In an ideal situation, public organizations should be able to
detect changes in their environment (internal and external)
and assess the repercussions that induce these changes to
the organization and to the provided services. Additionally,
public organizations should immediately develop changes,
innovation and entrepreneurship so that they can respond
to the continuous changes.
The intensely dynamic global sociopolitical environment in
combination with the constant technological changes, require,
perhaps more than ever, public (and not only) organizations to
embrace practices and behavior which are characterized by
entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship is crucial for the organizations, not only for their
adaptation to new data and their development but also for their
survival.
Thanks a lot for your attention!
Konstantinos M. Karyotakis
Maria Bakatsaki
Vassilis Moustakis
Technical University of Crete, Greece