James Q. Wilson recommends what guiding principles in making for the most efficient and effective public organizations? How might these recommendations be applied to your understanding of a work organization with which you have had experience?
James Q. Wilson states in his book that government agencies or the public organizations are those bureaucracies which run in numerous ways. But Wilson has emphasized that the public organizations are not like the private enterprises; the major reason is that they have not the aim of maximizing their profits and achieving their goals. Wilson has given two recommendations for the bureaucratic morass which includes: privatizing the maximum possible work and secondly is to deregulate the bureaucracy. The actual problem is that the public organizations like the government agencies and institutions are being run by unqualified bureaucrats. It must be taken into consideration that public organizations are government bureaucracies which means that they are completely different from those businesses that run independently because their incentives and aims are completely distinct.
The first proposal of privatizing is not a new one as free markets are being supported by almost every economy in the globalized era. It has been seen that the private organizations are comparatively more efficient and more cost effective than the government agencies at delivering the goods and services. Numerous cases can be seen around the globe; the public healthcare organizations are lesser efficient as compared to the private healthcare facilities (Cooper & Johri, 1995). And so, I believe that in some areas like the healthcare, the education and tourism even, privatization can be a good option. It would also lead to more competition which would further mean that lesser price for the consumers and more quality of service. The biggest benefit of the free market and privatization is that it is in the interests of the consumer and also leads to the growth of the economy of the country.
As far as the second option is concerned; there are some agencies like the armies, the police forces etc. that cannot be actually privatized; in this case, as Wilson suggests bureaucracy needs to be deregulated. These organizations are factually the necessary evil and more efficient working is required. Rather than drowning the government employees in tons of paperwork, it would be a lot better that most of the restraints should be eliminated only leaving behind some essential ones. Rather than having the fixed official routines and guidelines, some authority and power should be delegated to the departments and the employees; the focus should be the delivery of results and not on following the exact process (Volden, 2002). The organization should be evaluated and assessed on its results; with delegation of power, these public organizations would become more effective.
This fact cannot be negated that public organizations specially the elite agencies which have been created by the government are not easier to be created and developed with constraints and limitations. Integrating innovation has become the need of the era and until and unless these proposals are taken into consideration, it is not possible to influence these organizations. The public organizations must be developed and several changes must be brought into these bureaucracies based on the proposals by Wilson.
The public organizations are those bureaucracies that are subject to various constraints; and the truth is that it is these constraints which can explain why these organizations are inefficient. First of all, these organizations are restricted by law to retain any private benefit for their members in terms of earnings which means that their incentive is not the maximization of their profit like McDonald’s or any other independent business. Secondly, the factors of production cannot be moved according to the preference of the administrators of the organization. There is no chance that in public organizations, mobility of equipment or people would be possible with the need. This means that there is excessive complexity due to the official routine that the organization has to follow at any cost. And not to forget that the biggest constraint is that these bureaucracies do not strive for the goals that the organization chooses for itself; rather these goals have been defined and chosen by the government itself. The bureaucrats cannot ignore or bypass these goals and opt for risk taking like other business organizations.
With the presence of all these constraints, the management of these organizations focuses on constraints and the official guidelines; this makes them forget the task and what the outcome should be while they only worry about doing the exact process. As the outcome is neglected, there is more chance that the outcome is not what is required and so it results in the ineffectiveness of the organization. Further, it has been seen that in the government agencies, efficiency is not given importance at all rather it is the equity which is laid emphasis upon; and this is also why the managers become risk averse; they would not choose to take risk as they would never choose to use the resources available to them as they are scarce.
I completely agree with the proposals of Wilson; as I believe that the structure of these bureaucracies needs to be revisited; their goals and their incentives require being changed initially. How is it even possible to grow and develop when the public organizations remain astray from the actual goals? Rather than being process oriented, these organizations and especially the government needs to be goal oriented or result oriented. Results can only be achieved efficiently when there is change in behavior and for this purpose, more competition is required which is possible by privatization and delegation of more power. Public organizations also underutilize the skills of the management and also hinder the growth of their skills which is a burden on the economy and also bears costs. So, labor force development would also be possible with change in goals and structure of the bureaucracy.
References
Cooper, C. & Johri, H. (1995). Canadian experience in privatizing public service organizations. Management for privatization: lessons from industry and public service, 32 p. 139.
Volden, C. (2002). Delegating power to bureaucracies: evidence from the states. Journal of law, economics, and organization, 18 (1), pp. 187--220.
Wilson, J. Q. (1989). Bureaucracy. New York: Basic Books.
