Management and service delivery can either be public or private. Public administration is usually defined as encompassing public leadership and management of public affairs emanating from executive action. Such organizations are overly reliant on government revenue for funding their roles. Private administration on the other hand refers to organizations that are not reliant on government funding but rather depend on the fees paid by consumers of goods and services.
The distinctions and resemblances between public administration and private management have an important insight in decision making processes. The continued privatization of approaches by various governments the world over points to existence of differences between the government run organizations and those organizations that are under private management. Privatization of public organizations is aimed at remedying the fact that organizations under public management are largely inefficient and ineffective. The major differences between public and private management are with regard to scope and the manner of operations.
Public administration is geared towards the implementation of government policies. It involves government owned initiatives. The private sector on the other hand involves private initiatives and entails organizations usually owned by private citizens. Among the most notable differences are that service delivery in the public sector is slow than the private sector, private sector is geared towards profit making but the public sector focuses on effective and efficient work force, and public administration is mainly concerned with the execution of government policies. Further, the public sector has a wide scope which includes carrying out effective studies relating to decision making and advancing the management and policies to ensure that the government is functional.
The slow delivery of services in the public sector is due to slow decision making processes that are prone to turbulent interruptions by political operatives. Conversely, decision making processes in private administration have minimal interruptions. This difference is based on the administrative roles of both sectors. For instance, private administration is mostly focused on selling services and products to consumers within the market with the aim of generating wealth for stakeholders while the public administration’s role of gathering information regarding public needs require public responses that necessitate diverse categories of accountability and expectations thus requiring different decision making practices.
Further, organizations that have public structures are subject to disclosure. The legislature also regulates the public sector budgets which limit the expenditure by public sectors. As such, people heading the public sector report to politically appointed oversight committees and any discussions with such committees are likely to be leaked to the public. Such political influences render decision making in the public administration challenging since there must be consultations with the oversight bodies (Nutt 290). On the contrary, the appropriations and budgetary allocations in the private sector depend on market mechanisms. Hence the purchasing power of the people determines the effective private administrative actions. The fact that the private sector focuses on profit making means that the allocation of resources is skewed towards the most gainful areas.
Similarities
Although these two sectors are distinct from each other, every government must design proper guidelines regarding the running of both sectors and the extent of their roles. Such strategies are achieved through the legislature. As such, both public and private administrations are subject to regulations and effects of political regulations. Consequently, both sectors are answerable to superior authorities and are held accountable for their actions. Further similarities are with regard to internal operations such as documentation, filing, and arranging meetings. Hence internal administrative actions are similar in most organizations whether private or public. Further, both forms of organizations entail providing some form of services their consumers or clients with the consumers in the public sector being the overall public.
Public and private organizations learn structural and cultural perspectives from each other. The private organizations are often affected a great deal by government policies such organizations have therefore ensured that they keep in touch with the government by establishing government relations offices. Such offices are aimed at ensuring that private administration in collaboration with the public administration present their interests to government agencies before government establishes policies which would affect the private administration. As such private sector representatives communicate and educate policymakers on how proposed legislations would affect the private administration. Substantive counsel from experts regarding possible effects of proposed legislation ensures lawmakers enact impartial laws with few or no unintended consequences to the private sector. Private administrations also learn to be more accountable to the shareholders and the public for outcomes from the public administrations.
Public sectors also learn to distinguish between administration and politics. This is effectively achieved by creating a positive mentality that successive governments may differ on matters regarding political philosophies entrenched in the supreme laws but the aspects of good and effective governance remain the same in any structure of government. Such an approach is important in ensuring uniformity and efficiency. The public administration also learns to be materialistic from the private administration. This aspect ensures that the public administration adopts similar stronger organizational commitment. Such commitments include streamlining bureaucratic processes in decision making.
Work Cited
Nutt, Paul. “Comparing Public and Private Sector Decision-Making Practices.” Journal of Public
Administration Research and Theory. Oxford University Press. 16(2005): 289–318.
