public administration: theory and
practice
Prof. El Thalassinos
Chair Jean Monnet
University of Piraeus
Editor, ERSJ, IJEBA
www.ersj.eu
www.jeanmonnet-emu.eu
www.maritime-unipi.gr
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public administration
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Public administration is both an academic discipline
and a field of practice;
Public administration houses the implementation of
government policy and an academic discipline that
studies this implementation and that prepares civil
servants for this work;
As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its
fundamental goal is to advance management and
policies so that government can function;
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definitions
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"the management of public programs"
"translation of politics into the reality that citizens see
every day"
"the study of government decision making, the
analysis of the policies themselves, the various inputs
that have produced them, and the inputs necessary to
produce alternative policies”
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concerns
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Centrally concerned with the organization of
government policies and programmes as well as the
behavior of officials (usually non-elected) formally
responsible for their conduct;
Many unelected public servants can be considered to
be public administrators, including heads of city,
county, regional, state and federal departments such as
municipal budget directors, human resources (H.R.)
administrators, city managers, census managers, state
[mental health] directors, and cabinet secretaries;
Public administrators are public servants working in
public departments and agencies, at all levels of
government;
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Max Weber's theory of bureaucracy
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Until the mid-20th century and the dissemination of
the German sociologist Max Weber's theory of
bureaucracy there was not much interest in a theory of
public administration;
The field is multidisciplinary in character; one of the
various proposals for public administration's sub-fields
sets out six pillars, including human resources,
organizational theory, policy analysis and statistics,
budgeting and ethics.
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more
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Public administration has no generally accepted
definition, because the scope of the subject is so great
and so debatable that it is easier to explain than define.
Public administration is a field of study (i.e., a
discipline) and an occupation. There is much
disagreement about whether the study of public
administration can properly be called a discipline,
largely because of the debate over whether public
administration is a subfield of political science or a
subfield of administrative science.
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the North American Industry
Classification System definition
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Public administration comprises establishments
primarily engaged in activities of a governmental
nature, that is, the enactment and judicial interpretation
of laws and their pursuant regulations, and the
administration of programs based on them.
This includes legislative activities, taxation, national
defense, public order and safety, immigration services,
foreign affairs and international assistance, and the
administration of government programs are activities
that are purely governmental in nature.
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from the academic perspective
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Defines the study of public administration as a
program that prepares individuals to serve as
managers in the executive arm of local, state, and
federal government and that focuses on the systematic
study of executive organization and management.
Includes instruction in the roles, development and
principles of public administration; the management
of public policy; executive-legislative relations; public
budgetary processes and financial management;
administrative law; public personnel management;
professional ethics and research methods.
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history: antiquity to the 19th century
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Dating back to Antiquity, Pharaohs, Kings and
Emperors have required pages, treasurers, and tax
collectors to administer the practical business of
government.
Prior to the 19th century, staffing of most public
administrations was rife with nepotism, favoritism, and
political patronage, which was often referred to as a
spoils system.
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history: antiquity to the 19th century
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Public administrators have been the "eyes and ears" of
rulers until relatively recently. In medieval times, the
abilities to read and write, add and subtract were as
dominated by the educated elite as public employment.
Consequently, the need for expert civil servants whose
ability to read and write formed the basis for
developing expertise in such necessary activities as
legal record-keeping, paying and feeding armies and
levying taxes. As the European Imperialist age
progressed and the militarily powers extended their
hold over other continents and people, the need for a
sophisticated public administration grew.
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history: antiquity to the 19th century
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The eighteenth-century noble, King Frederick William
I of Prussia, created professorates in Cameralism in an
effort to train a new class of public administrators.
The universities of Frankfurt an der Oder and
University of Halle were Prussian institutions
emphasizing economic and social disciplines, with the
goal of societal reform. Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi
was the most well-known professor of Cameralism.
Thus, from a Western European perspective, Classic,
Medieval, and Enlightenment-era scholars formed the
foundation of the discipline that has come to be called
public administration.
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history: antiquity to the 19th century
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Lorenz von Stein, an 1855 German professor from
Vienna, is considered the founder of the science of
public administration in many parts of the world. In
the time of Von Stein, public administration was
considered a form of administrative law, but Von Stein
believed this concept too restrictive. Von Stein taught
that public administration relies on many preestablished disciplines such as sociology, political
science, administrative law and public finance. He
called public administration an integrating science, and
stated that public administrators should be concerned
with both theory and practice. He argued that public
administration is a science because knowledge is
generated and evaluated according to the scientific
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method.
history: antiquity to the 19th century
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In the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson is
considered the father of public administration. He first
formally recognized public administration in an 1887
article entitled "The Study of Administration." The
future president wrote that "it is the object of
administrative study to discover, first, what
government can properly and successfully do, and,
secondly, how it can do these proper things with the
utmost possible efficiency and at the least possible cost
either of money or of energy”.
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history: antiquity to the 19th century
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Wilson was more influential to the science of public
administration than Von Stein, primarily due to an article
Wilson wrote in 1887 in which he advocated four concepts:
Separation of politics and administration;
Comparative analysis of political and private organizations;
Improving efficiency with business-like practices and attitudes
toward daily operations;
Improving the effectiveness of public service through
management and by training civil servants, merit-based
assessment;
The separation of politics and administration has been the
subject of lasting debate. The different perspectives regarding
this dichotomy contribute to differentiating characteristics of the
suggested generations of public administration.
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history: antiquity to the 19th century
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By the 1920s, scholars of public administration had
responded to Wilson's solicitation and thus textbooks in this
field were introduced. A few distinguished scholars of that
period were, Luther Gulick, Lyndall Urwick, Henri Fayol,
Frederick Taylor, and others. Frederick Taylor (1856-1915),
another prominent scholar in the field of administration and
management also published a book entitled ‘The Principles
of Scientific Management’ (1911). He believed that
scientific analysis would lead to the discovery of the ‘one
best way’ to do things and /or carrying out an operation.
This, according to him could help save cost and time.
Taylor’s technique was later introduced to private
industrialists, and later into the various government
organizations (Jeong, 2007).
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US in the 1940s
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The separation of politics and administration
advocated by Wilson continues to play a significant
role in public administration today. However, the
dominance of this dichotomy was challenged by
second generation scholars, beginning in the 1940s.
Luther Gulick's fact-value dichotomy was a key
contender for Wilson's proposed politicsadministration dichotomy. In place of Wilson's first
generation split, Gulick advocated a seamless web of
discretion and interaction.
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Taylor's approach
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Taylor's approach is often referred to as Taylor's Principles,
and/or Taylorism. Taylor's scientific management consisted
of main four principles (Frederick W. Taylor, 1911):
Replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based
on a scientific study of the tasks;
Scientifically select, train, and develop each employee
rather than passively leaving them to train themselves;
Provide ‘Detailed instruction and supervision of each
worker in the performance of that worker's discrete task’
(Montgomery 1997);
Divide work nearly equally between managers and workers,
so that the managers apply scientific management principles
to planning the work and the workers actually perform the
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tasks.
Taylor's approach
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Taylor had very precise ideas about how to introduce
his system (approach). It is only through enforced
standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the
best implements and working conditions, and
enforced cooperation that this faster work can be
assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of
standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with
management alone.
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Taylor's approach
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Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick are two secondgeneration scholars. Gulick, Urwick, and the new
generation of administrators built on the work of
contemporary behavioral, administrative, and
organizational scholars including Henri Fayol,
Fredrick Winslow Taylor, Paul Appleby, Frank
Goodnow, and Willam Willoughby. The new
generation of organizational theories no longer relied
upon logical assumptions and generalizations about
human nature like classical and enlightened theorists.
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POSDCORB
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Gulick developed a comprehensive, generic theory of
organization that emphasized the scientific method, efficiency,
professionalism, structural reform, and executive control.
Gulick summarized the duties of administrators with an
acronym; POSDCORB, which stands for planning, organizing,
staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting. Fayol
developed a systematic, 14-point, treatment of private
management. Second-generation theorists drew upon private
management practices for administrative sciences. A single,
generic management theory bleeding the borders between the
private and the public sector was thought to be possible. With
the general theory, the administrative theory could be focused
on governmental organizations.
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post–world war II to the 1970s
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The mid-1940s theorists challenged Wilson and Gulick.
The politics-administration dichotomy remained the
center of criticism. In the 1960s and 1970s, government
itself came under fire as ineffective, inefficient, and
largely a wasted effort. The costly American
intervention in Vietnam along with domestic scandals
including the bugging of Democratic party
headquarters (the 1974 Watergate scandal) are two
examples of self-destructive government behavior that
alienated citizens.
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post–world war II to the 1970s
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There was a call by citizens for efficient administration
to replace ineffective, wasteful bureaucracy. Public
administration would have to distance itself from
politics to answer this call and remain effective.
Elected officials supported these reforms. The Hoover
Commission, chaired by University of Chicago
professor Louis Brownlow, to examine reorganization
of government. Brownlow subsequently founded the
Public Administration Service (PAS) at the university,
an organization which has provided consulting
services to all levels of government until the 1970s.
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post–world war II to the 1970s
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Concurrently, after World War II, the whole concept
of public administration expanded to include policymaking and analysis, thus the study of
‘administrative policy making and analysis’ was
introduced and enhanced into the government
decision-making bodies. Later on, the human factor
became a predominant concern and emphasis in the
study of Public Administration.
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post–world war II to the 1970s
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Henceforth, the emergence of scholars such as, Fritz
Morstein Marx with his book ‘The Elements of Public
Administration’ (1946), Paul H. Appleby ‘Policy and
Administration’ (1952), Frank Marini ‘Towards a New
Public Administration’ (1971), and others that have
contributed positively in these endeavors.
Public administration can be defined as a department
in the executive arm of government responsible for
the formulating and implementation of government
policies and programmes.
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1980s–1990s
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In the late 1980s, yet another generation of public
administration theorists began to displace the last. The
new theory, which came to be called New Public
Management, was proposed by David Osborne and Ted
Gaebler in their book Reinventing Government. The
new model advocated the use of private sector-style
models, organizational ideas and values to improve the
efficiency and service-orientation of the public sector.
During the Clinton Administration (1993–2001), Vice
President Al Gore adopted and reformed federal
agencies using NPM approaches. In the 1990s, new
public management became prevalent throughout the
bureaucracies of the US, the UK and, to a lesser extent,
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in Canada.
1980s–1990s
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Some modern authors define NPM as a combination
of splitting large bureaucracies into smaller, more
fragmented agencies, encouraging competition
between different public agencies and encouraging
competition between public agencies and private firms
and using economic incentives lines (e.g.,
performance pay for senior executives or user-pay
models.
NPM treats individuals as "customers" or "clients" (in
the private sector sense), rather than as citizens.
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1980s–1990s
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Some critics argue that the New Public Management
concept of treating people as "customers" rather than
"citizens" is an inappropriate borrowing from the
private sector model, because businesses see customers
are a means to an end (profit), rather than as the
proprietors of government (the owners), opposed to
merely the customers of a business (the patrons). In
New Public Management, people are viewed as
economic units not democratic participants.
Nevertheless, the model is still widely accepted at all
levels of government and in many OECD nations.
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late 1990s–2000
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In the late 1990s, Janet and Robert Denhardt proposed
a new public services model in response to the
dominance of NPM. A successor to NPM is digital era
governance, focusing on themes of reintegrating
government responsibilities, needs-based holism
(executing duties in cursive ways), and digitalization
(exploiting the transformational capabilities of modern
IT and digital storage).One example of this is
openforum.com.au, an Australian non-for-pronvites
politicians, senior public servants, academics, business
people and other key stakeholders to engage in highlevel policy debate.
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late 1990s–2000
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Another new public service model is what has been
called New Public Governance, an approach which
includes a centralization of power; an increased
number, role and influence of partisan-political staff;
personal-politicization of appointments to the senior
public service; and, the assumption that the public
service is promiscuously partisan for the government
of the day.
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approaches to the study of public
administration i
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Behavioural Approach
System's Approach
Ecological Approach
Structural Functional Approach
Public Choice Approach
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Contingency Approach
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approaches to the study of public
administration ii
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In academia, the field of public administration
consists of a number of sub-fields. Scholars have
proposed a number of different sets of sub-fields.
One of the proposed models uses five "pillars":
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approaches to the study of public
administration iii
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Human resource management is an in-house
structure that ensures that public service staffing is
done in an unbiased, ethical and values-based
manner. The basic functions of the HR system are
employee benefits, employee health care,
compensation, etc.
Organizational Theory in Public Administration is
the study of the structure of governmental entities
and the many particulars inculcated in them.
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approaches to the study of public
administration iv
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Ethics in public administration serves as a
normative approach to decision making.
Policy analysis serves as an empirical
approach to decision making.
Public budgeting is the activity within a
government that seeks to allocate scarce
resources among unlimited demands.
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international public administration i
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There are several organizations that are active. The
Commonwealth Association of Public
Administration and Management CAPAM
http://www.capam.org/ is perhaps the most
diverse, covering the 54 member states of the
Commonwealth from India to Nauru. Its biennial
conference brings together ministers of public
service, top officials and leading scholars in the
field.
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international public administration ii
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The oldest is the International Institute of
Administrative Sciences. Based in Brussels,
Belgium, the IIAS is a worldwide platform
providing a space for exchanges that promote
knowledge and practices to improve the
organization and operation of Public
Administration and to ensure that public agencies
will be in a position to better respond to the
current and future expectations and needs of
society. The IIAS has set-up four entities: the
International Association of Schools and Institutes
of Administration (IASIA), the European Group
for Public Administration (EGPA).
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international public administration iii
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The Latin American Group for Public
Administration (LAGPA) and the Asian Group for
Public Administration (AGPA). IASIA is an
association of organizations and individuals whose
activities and interests focus on public
administration and management.
The activities of its members include education
and training of administrators and managers. It is
the only worldwide scholarly association in the
field of public management. EGPA, LAGPA and
AGPA are the regional sub-entities of the IIAS.
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international public administration iv
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Also the International Committee of the US-based
National Association of School of Public Affairs
and Administration (NASPAA) has developed a
number of relationships around the world. They
include sub regional and National forums like
CLAD, INPAE and NISPAcee, APSA, ASPA.
The Center for Latin American Administration for
Development (CLAD), based in Caracas,
Venezuela, this regional network of schools of
public administration set up by the governments in
Latin America is the oldest in the region.
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behavioural approach i
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Behavioralism (or behaviouralism) is an approach
in political science, which emerged in the 1930s in
the United States. It represents a sharp break from
previous political science. This is because it
emphasized an objective, quantified approach to
explain and predict political behavior.
It is associated with the rise of the behavioral
sciences, modeled after the natural sciences. This
means that behavioralism tries to explain behavior
with an unbiased, neutral point of view.
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behavioural approach ii
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Behavioralism seeks to examine the behavior,
actions, and acts of individuals – rather than the
characteristics of institutions such as legislatures,
executives, and judiciaries – and groups in
different social settings and explain this behavior
as it relates to the political system.
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behavioural approach iii
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Behavioralists used strict methodology and empirical
research to validate their study as a social science.
The behavioralist approach was innovative because it
changed the attitude of the purpose of inquiry. It
moved toward research that was supported by
verifiable facts.
During its rise in popularity in the 1960s and 70s,
behavioralism challenged the realist and liberal
approaches, which the behavioralists called
"traditionalism", and other studies of political
behavior that was not based on fact.
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behavioural approach iv
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To understand political behavior, behavioralism uses
the following methods: sampling, interviewing, scoring
and scaling and statistical analysis.
Behavioralism studies how individuals behave in
group positions realistically rather than how they
should behave. For example, a study of the United
States Congress might include a consideration of how
members of Congress behave in their positions. The
subject of interest is the how Congress becomes an
"arena of actions" and the surrounding formal and
informal spheres of power.
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behavioural approach v
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From the beginning, behavioralism was a political,
not a scientific concept. Moreover, since
behavioralism is not a research tradition, but a
political movement, definitions of behavioralism
follow what behavioralists wanted.
Therefore, most introductions to the subject
emphasize value-free research. This is evidenced
by Easton's eight "intellectual foundation stones"
of behavioralism:
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behavioural approach vi
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Regularities - The generalization and explanation of
regularities.
Commitment to Verification - The ability to verify ones
generalizations.
Techniques - An experimental attitude toward techniques.
Quantification - Express results as numbers where possible or
meaningful.
Values - Keeping ethical assessment and empirical
explanations distinct.
Systemization - Considering the importance of theory in
research.
Pure Science - Deferring to pure science rather than applied
science.
Integration - Integrating social sciences and value
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behavioural approach vi
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According to David Easton, behavioralism sought
to be "analytic, not substantive, general rather than
particular, and explanatory rather than ethical.“
In this, the theory seeks to evaluate political
behavior without "introducing any ethical
evaluations"; Rodger Beehler cites this as "their
insistence on distinguishing between facts and
values."
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criticism i
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The approach has come under fire from both
conservatives and radicals for the purported valueneutrality. Conservatives see the distinction
between values and facts as a way of undermining
the possibility of political philosophy.
Neal Riemer believes behavioralism dismisses
"the task of ethical recommendation" because
behavioralists believe "truth or falsity of values
(democracy, equality, and freedom, etc.) cannot be
established scientifically and are beyond the scope
of legitimate inquiry."
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criticism ii
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Christian Bay believed behavioralism was a
pseudopolitical science and that it did not
represent "genuine" political research. Bay
objected to empirical consideration taking
precedence over normative and moral examination
of politics.
Behavioralism initially represented a movement
away from "naive empiricism", but has been
criticized as an approach has been criticized for
"naive scientism". Additionally, radical critics
believe that the separation of fact from value
makes the empirical study of politics impossible.
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system's approach i
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Systems thinking is the process of understanding
how things influence one another within a whole.
In nature, systems thinking examples include
ecosystems in which various elements such as air,
water, movement, plants, and animals work
together to survive or perish. In organizations,
systems consist of people, structures, and
processes that work together to make an
organization "healthy" or "unhealthy".
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system's approach ii
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Systems thinking has been defined as an approach to
problem solving, by viewing "problems" as parts of
an overall system, rather than reacting to specific
part, outcomes or events and potentially contributing
to further development of unintended consequences.
Systems thinking is not one thing but a set of habits
or practices within a framework that is based on the
belief that the component parts of a system can best
be understood in the context of relationships with
each other and with other systems, rather than in
isolation. Systems thinking focuses on cyclical rather
than linear cause and effect.
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system's approach iii
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In science systems, it is argued that the only way to
fully understand why a problem or element occurs
and persists is to understand the parts in relation to
the whole.
Standing in contrast to Descartes's scientific
reductionism and philosophical analysis, it proposes
to view systems in a holistic manner. Consistent with
systems philosophy, systems thinking concerns an
understanding of a system by examining the linkages
and interactions between the elements that compose
the entirety of the system.
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system's approach iv
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Science systems thinking attempts to illustrate that
events are separated by distance and time and that
small catalytic events can cause large changes in
complex systems.
Acknowledging that an improvement in one area
of a system can adversely affect another area of
the system, it promotes organizational
communication at all levels in order to avoid the
silo effect. Systems thinking techniques may be
used to study any kind of system — natural,
scientific, engineered, human, or conceptual.
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system's approach v
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The several ways to think of and define a system
include:.
A system is composed of parts.
All the parts of a system must be related (directly or
indirectly), else there are really two or more distinct
systems.
A system is encapsulated, has a boundary.
The boundary of a system is a decision made by an
observer, or a group of observers.
A system can be nested inside another system.
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system's approach vi
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A system can overlap with another system.
A system is bounded in time.
A system is bounded in space, though the
parts are not necessarily co-located.
A system receives input from, and sends
output into, the wider environment.
A system consists of processes that
transform inputs into outputs.
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system's approach vii
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Science systems thinkers consider that:
a system is a dynamic and complex whole, interacting as a
structured functional unit;
energy, material and information flow among the different
elements that compose the system;
a system is a community situated within an environment;
energy, material and information flow from and to the
surrounding environment via semi-permeable membranes or
boundaries;
systems are often composed of entities seeking equilibrium but
can exhibit oscillating, chaotic, or exponential behavior.
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system's approach viii
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The systems thinking approach incorporates several
tenets:
Interdependence of objects and their attributes independent elements can never constitute a system.
Holism - emergent properties not possible to detect
by analysis should be possible to define by a holistic
approach.
Goal seeking - systemic interaction must result in
some goal or final state.
Inputs and Outputs - in a closed system inputs are
determined once and constant; in an open system
additional inputs are admitted from the environment.
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system's approach ix
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Transformation of inputs into outputs - this is the process by
which the goals are obtained:
Entropy - the amount of disorder or randomness present in
any system;
Regulation - a method of feedback is necessary for the system
to operate predictably;
Hierarchy - complex wholes are made up of smaller
subsystems;
Differentiation - specialized units perform specialized
functions;
Equifinality - alternative ways of attaining the same
objectives (convergence);
Multifinality - attaining alternative objectives from the same
inputs (divergence) ;
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ecological approach i
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The ecological model of competition is a
reassessment of the nature of competition in the
economy. Traditional economics models the economy
on the principles of physics (force, equilibrium,
inertia, momentum, and linear relationships).
This can be seen in the economics lexicon: terms like
labour force, market equilibrium, capital flows, and
price elasticity. This is probably due to historical
coincidence. Classical Newtonian physics was the
state of the art in science when Adam Smith was
formulating the first principles of economics in the
18th century.
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ecological approach ii
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According to the ecological model, it is more
appropriate to model the economy on biology (growth,
change, death, evolution, survival of the fittest,
complex inter-relationships, non-linear relationships).
Businesses operate in a complex environment with
interlinked sets of determinants. Companies co-evolve
they influence, and are influenced by, competitors,
customers, governments, investors, suppliers, unions,
distributors, banks, and others.
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ecological approach iii
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We should look at this business environment as a
business ecosystem that both sustains, and
threatens the firm. A company that is not well
matched to its environment might not survive.
Companies that are able to develop a successful
business model and turn a core competency into a
sustainable competitive advantage will thrive and
grow. Very successful firms may come to
dominate their industry (referred to as category
killers).
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ecological approach iv
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Ecological economics is referred to as both a transdisciplinary and
interdisciplinary field of academic research that aims to address the
interdependence and coevolution of human economies and natural
ecosystems over time and space.
It is distinguished from environmental economics, which is the
mainstream economic analysis of the environment, by its treatment
of the economy as a subsystem of the ecosystem and its emphasis
upon preserving natural capital.
One survey of German economists found that ecological and
environmental economics are different schools of economic
thought, with ecological economists emphasizing "strong"
sustainability and rejecting the proposition that natural capital can
be substituted by human-made capital.
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ecological approach v


Ecological economics was founded as a modern
movement in the works of and interactions
between various European and American
academics, see the section on history and
development below.
The related field of green economics is, in general,
a more politically applied form of the subject.
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ecological approach vi


Mainstream economics has attempted to become a
value-free 'hard science', but ecological
economists argue that value-free economics is
generally not realistic.
Ecological economics is more willing to entertain
alternative conceptions of utility, efficiency, and
cost-benefits such as positional analysis or multicriteria analysis. Ecological economics is typically
viewed as economics for sustainable development,
and may have goals similar to green politics.
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ecological approach vii



Ecological economics is distinguishable from
neoclassical economics primarily by its assertion that
the economy is embedded within an environmental
system.
Ecology deals with the energy and matter
transactions of life and the Earth, and the human
economy is by definition contained within this
system.
Ecological economists argue that neoclassical
economics has ignored the environment, at best
considering it to be a subset of the human economy.
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ecological approach viii

Ecological economics challenges the conventional
approach towards natural resources, claiming that
it undervalues natural capital by considering it as
interchangeable with human-made capital—labor
and technology.
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ecological approach ix

Neoclassical economists tend to maintain that
man-made capital can, in principle, replace all
types of natural capital. This is known as the weak
sustainability view, essentially that every
technology can be improved upon or replaced by
innovation, and that there is a substitute for any
and all scarce materials.
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ecological approach x


At the other extreme, the strong sustainability
view argues that the stock of natural resources and
ecological functions are irreplaceable.
From the premises of strong sustainability, it
follows that economic policy has a fiduciary
responsibility to the greater ecological world, and
that sustainable development must therefore take a
different approach to valuing natural resources and
ecological functions.
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structural functional approach i

Structural functionalism, or simply
Functionalism, is a framework for building
theory that sees society as a complex system
whose parts work together to promote solidarity
and stability. This approach looks at society
through a macro-level orientation, which is a
broad focus on the social structures that shape
society as a whole. This approach looks at both
social structure and social functions.
Functionalism addresses society as a whole in
terms of the function of its constituent elements;
namely norms, customs, traditions, and
institutions.
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structural functional approach ii


A common analogy, popularized by Herbert Spencer,
presents these parts of society as "organs" that work
toward the proper functioning of the "body" as a whole. In
the most basic terms, it simply emphasizes "the effort to
impute, as rigorously as possible, to each feature, custom,
or practice, its effect on the functioning of a supposedly
stable, cohesive system".
For Talcott Parsons, "structural-functionalism" came to
describe a particular stage in the methodological
development of social science, rather than a specific school
of thought. The structural functionalism approach is a
macrosociological analysis, with a broad focus on social
structures that shape society as a whole.
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structural functional approach iii


Classical functionalist theories are defined by a
tendency towards biological analogy and notions of
social evolutionism:
Functionalist thought, from Comte onwards, has
looked particularly towards biology as the science
providing the closest and most compatible model for
social science. Biology has been taken to provide a
guide to conceptualizing the structure and the
function of social systems and to analyzing processes
of evolution via mechanisms of adaptation ...
functionalism strongly emphasises the pre-eminence
of the social world over its individual parts.
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structural functional approach iv


Durkheim, who, following Comte, believed that
society constitutes a separate "level" of reality,
distinct from both biological and inorganic matter.
Explanations of social phenomena had therefore to
be constructed within this level, individuals being
merely transient occupants of comparatively stable
social roles. The central concern of structural
functionalism is a continuation of the
Durkheimian task of explaining the apparent
stability and internal cohesion needed by societies
to endure over time.
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structural functional approach v


Societies are seen as coherent, bounded and fundamentally
relational constructs that function like organisms, with their
various parts (or social institutions) working together in an
unconscious, quasi-automatic fashion toward achieving an
overall social equilibrium.
All social and cultural phenomena are therefore seen as
functional in the sense of working together, and are effectively
deemed to have "lives" of their own. They are primarily
analyzed in terms of this function. The individual is significant
not in and of himself, but rather in terms of his status, his
position in patterns of social relations, and the behaviours
associated with his status. Therefore, the social structure is the
network of statuses connected by associated roles.
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structural functional approach vi

Auguste Comte, the "Father of Positivism",
pointed out the need to keep society unified as
many traditions were diminishing. He was the first
person to coin the term sociology. Auguste Comte
suggests that sociology is the product of a threestage development.
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structural functional approach vii
1.
2.
3.
Theological Stage: From the beginning of human history
until the end of the European Middle Ages, people took a
religious view that society expressed God's will. In the
theological state, the human mind, seeking the essential nature
of beings, the first and final causes (the origin and purpose) of
all effects—in short, absolute knowledge—supposes all
phenomena to be produced by the immediate action of
supernatural beings.
Metaphysical Stage: People began seeing society as a natural
system as opposed to the supernatural. Began with the
Enlightenment and the ideas of Hobbes, Locke,and Rousseau.
Reflected the failings of a selfish human nature rather than the
perfection of God.
Scientific Stage: Describing society through the application
of the scientific approach, which draws on the work of
scientists.
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structural functional approach viii

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), a British
philosopher famous for applying the theory of
natural selection to society. He was in many ways
the first true sociological functionalist.
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structural functional approach ix





Spencer concluded that society is constantly facing
selection pressures (internal and external) that force it to
adapt its internal structure through differentiation.
Every solution, however, causes a new set of selection
pressures that threaten society's viability. It should be
noted that Spencer was not a determinist in the sense that
he never said that:
Selection pressures will be felt in time to change them;
They will be felt and reacted to; or
The solutions will always work.
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structural functional approach x



He was in many ways a political sociologist and
recognized that the degree of centralized and consolidated
authority in a given polity could make or break its ability
to adapt. In other words, he saw a general trend towards
the centralization of power as leading to stagnation and
ultimately, pressures to decentralize.
Spencer recognized three functional needs or prerequisites
that produce selection pressures: they are regulatory,
operative (production) and distributive.
He argued that all societies need to solve problems of
control and coordination, production of goods, services
and ideas, and, finally, to find ways of distributing these
resources.
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public choice approach i



Public choice theory is the use of modern economic tools to study
problems that traditionally are in the province of political science.
From the perspective of political science, it is the subset of positive
political theory that models voters, politicians, and bureaucrats as
mainly self-interested.
It studies such agents and their interactions in the social system either
as such or under alternative constitutional rules. These can be
represented in a number of ways, including standard constrained
utility maximization, game theory, or decision theory.
Public choice analysis has roots in positive analysis ("what is") but is
often used for normative purposes ("what ought to be"), to identify a
problem or suggest how a system could be improved by changes in
constitutional rules, the subject of constitutional economics.
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public choice approach ii


Public choice theory is intimately related to social
choice theory, which uses mathematical tools to
study voting and voters.
Much early work had aspects of both, and both use
the tools of economics and game theory. Since
voter behavior influences the behavior of public
officials, public choice theory often uses results
from social choice theory.
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public choice approach iii

Prior to the emergence of public choice theory,
many economists tended to consider the state as an
agent outside the scope of economic theory, whose
actions depend on different considerations than
those driving economic agents. (The many other
economists who did place the state and its agents
within such theory include Vilfredo Pareto.)
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public choice approach iv


Public choice theory attempts to look at
governments from the perspective of the
bureaucrats and politicians who compose them,
and makes the assumption that they act based on a
budget-maximizing model in a self-interested way
for the purpose of growing their own power and
influence.
The theory aims to apply economic analysis
(usually decision theory and game theory) to the
political decision-making process in order to
reveal certain systematic trends towards inefficient
government policies.
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public choice approach v


Public choice theory is often used to explain how political
decision-making results in outcomes that conflict with the
preferences of the general public. For example, many
advocacy group and pork barrel projects are not the desire
of the overall democracy.
However, it makes sense for politicians to support these
projects. It may make them feel powerful and important. It
can also benefit them financially by opening the door to
future wealth as lobbyists. The project may be of interest to
the politician's local constituency, increasing district votes
or campaign contributions.
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public choice approach vi


One way to organize the subject matter studied by public
choice theorists is to begin with the foundations of the state
itself. According to this procedure, the most fundamental
subject is the origin of government.
Although some work has been done on anarchy, autocracy,
revolution, and even war, the bulk of the study in this area
has concerned the fundamental problem of collectively
choosing constitutional rules. This work assumes a group
of individuals who aim to form a government, then it
focuses on the problem of hiring the agents required to
carry out government functions agreed upon by the
members.
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public choice approach vii


Another major sub-field is the study of bureaucracy. The usual
model depicts the top bureaucrats as being chosen by the chief
executive and legislature, depending on whether the
democratic system is presidential or parliamentary. The typical
image of a bureau chief is a person on a fixed salary who is
concerned with pleasing those who appointed him. The latter
have the power to hire and fire him more or less at will.
The bulk of the bureaucrats, however, are civil servants whose
jobs and pay are protected by a civil service system against
major changes by their appointed bureau chiefs. This image is
often compared with that of a business owner whose profit
varies with the success of production and sales, who aims to
maximize profit, and who can in an ideal system hire and fire
employees at will.
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contingency approach i


Contingency approach, also known as situational
approach, is a concept in management stating that
there is no one universally applicable set of
management principles (rules) by which to
manage organizations.
Organizations are individually different, face
different situations (contingency variables), and
require different ways of managing. Contingency
approaches remain less common than change
management approaches.
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contingency approach ii


Contingency approach evolved during the 1960s. Management
theory and research began to adopt a new orientation, one that
embodied a simple concept and enabled significant
advancements in the study of management and organizations,
now referred to as the contingency approach.
It emphasised the importance of situational influences on the
management of organisations and questioned the existence of
a single, best way to manage or organise. Today, the
contingency approach dominates theory and research in the
management literature. Contingency approach challenged the
classic process and models designed by management theorists
such as Taylor and Fayol.
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contingency approach iii


A conceptual model of the contingency approach
was developed by Kieser and Kubicek. According
to the model, the formal structure of an
organization defines the roles of its members in a
specific way and thereby directs their behaviour to
a certain degree.
The performance of the organization depends on
the degree to which these role definitions enable
members to cope with the requirements resulting
from the context of the organization.
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contingency approach iv


While classical management theorists such as Taylor and
Fayol, were looking for the one best way in management and
organization design, in the late 50s and early 60s a shift of
paradigm arose, claiming that the organizational structure of a
company or administration has to fit to the situation in which
it finds itself. As these situations vary, different structures turn
out to be most effective.
In other words the optimal organizational structure is
contingent, depending on certain contextual factors. Therefore
this approach is labelled Contingency Approach, in German
the context is termed “situation“; and the approach is called
situational approach (“Situativer Ansatz“).
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contingency approach v


Different researchers focussed on different contextual factors
and investigated their influence in empirical studies. Joan
Woodward (1958) looked into the production technology,
Blau and Schoenherr (1971) into the size of the organizations,
Burns and Stalker (1961) as well as Lawrence and Lorsch
(1967) into the economic environment, in particular market
competition and technological change.
A broader approach was developed by a British team of
researchers at the University of Aston by developing a
conceptual scheme for the comparative analysis of
organizational structure which took account of several
contextual factors at the same time (Pugh & Hickson et al.,
1963).
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contingency approach vi


In a survey of more than 30 organizations, seven contextual
variables such as size, technology, geographical dispersion as
well as five dimensions of organization structure (specialization,
centralization of decision making, standardization,
formalization and configuration) were operationalized by more
than 80 indicators.
Statistical analysis was directed towards identifying
correlations, which were found, for example, between the size
of an organization and the degree of specialization and
formalization, as predicted by Max Weber. Later John Child
joined the Aston Team and added variables describing the role
structure and behaviour of organizational members and the
performance of the organization, which are considered to be the
relevant criteria for judging the fit between the structure and its
context.
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contingency approach vii

The Aston research programme was adopted in
studies in more than ten countries. The whole
research is summarized in four volumes
(Pugh/Hickson, 1976; Pugh & Hinings, 1976;
Pugh & Payne, 1977; Hickson & McMillan?,
1981). Kieser and Kubicek summarized this and
related research in a German Textbook in 1976,
using the following conceptual model (figure 1):
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contingency approach viii


According to this model, the formal structure of an
organization defines the roles of its members in a
specific way and thereby directs their behaviour to a
certain degree. The performance of the organization
depends on the degree to which these role definitions
enable members to cope with the requirements
resulting from the context of the organization.
For example if there is strong competition and a high
degree of technological change, decisions about new
products and marketing strategies have to be
changed frequently and be taken close to the market.
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contingency approach ix


The method to analyze and assess these kinds of
relationships is the comparative quantitative analysis,
in the most advanced stage a multi-level quantitative
analysis, assigning data to the level of the context, the
organization and its members.
These variables are operationalized in quantitative
indicators, and data are collected by standardized
questionnaires distributed to several members of each
organization under investigation and afterwards
aggregated to different indices for each level (for
more details see Kubicek, 1975).
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contingency approach x


Empirical studies conducted according to this model
could identify some interesting relations but did not
show very high correlations and clear cut patterns.
The introduction of additional variables did not increase
the level of the correlations. The fit of an organizational
structure with its context depends on too many aspects
and seems to be too complex, to be precisely captured
by linear quantitative relations.
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contingency approach xi

However, the basic idea of the situational
contingency of a particular object on its context as
well as the idea that the performance of an
institution depends on the fit between its
properties and its relevant context is still valid and
of great heuristic value as it suggests the critical
examination of too early generalizations and asks
for situational differentiation.
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contingency approach xii



This analytical approach can be found in other areas of management
theory too (e.g. leadership styles or strategic management) as well as
in studies on the social shaping of technology.
For example Mayntz and Schneider in a comparative study of the
introduction of videotex in the United Kingdom, France and Germany
used a conceptual framework according to which the final design of
the technical system and its institutional arrangement was influenced
by different constellations of actors in each country which acted in
different contexts, defined by the respective legal system, political
system, market structure and a different technological pool. Kubicek
and Westholm used a contingency model of the deployment of edemocracy tools in their scenarios of the future use of this kind of
tools.
The map of the socio-technical research landscape employed to map
different subjects of research in DEMO-net is based on a contingency
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approach as well.