public administration

WRITER: KAMUNDI E’M
UN IVERSITY OF NAIROBI
CPS 241:PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
COMPARE AND CONTRAST PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ADMINISTRATION
The term public administration has been defined differently by different scholars since it is a field of inquiry with a diverse scope. For instance, Woodrow Wilson defined public administration as, a systematic and efficient execution of public law. This definition implies that public administration is concerned by public law in public organization. Therefore, public administration is the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work, with the fundamental goal to advance management and policies so that government can function well.
On the other hand, Private administration refers to the individuals and processes that carry out the manufacturing, marketing, retailing, and providing of goods and services in exchange for payment.
The essence of this paper is to compare and contrast public administration versus private administration, as well as their similarities and differences.

DIFFRENCES BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ADMINISTRATION
 Public administration encompasses the individuals and processes that carry out laws, rules, and regulations that are issued by legislatures or other elected officials. While Private administration refers to the individuals and processes that carry out the manufacturing, marketing, retailing, and providing of goods and services in exchange for payment.
 In public administration, the decision must be and should be a social organization in which diversity of racial or religious or ethnic or cultural groups is tolerated . That’s means all key decisions are made in a politicized environment whereby there is maximum participation. A decision making hierarchy where consensus must be achieved at each level, ideally, an informed decision. While private administration's decision-making is much simpler- it's monopolistic or close to monopolistic. Thus a goal is clearly defined since decision-making would avoid any conflicts in interest.
 Private organizations are driven by profit motive while Public organizations are defined by public interest. Private administration has an ultimate mission in pursuit of profit or stability or growth of revenues while public administration mission is to enact public policies which are ambiguous and vague, but the enactment of these policies make public administration's purpose to be more ambiguous.
 Public administration is meant to provide public services and goods if the public requires it, while private administration is established for providing consumer’s goods and services as long as consumer can afford it.
 Information in public administration is subject to full or partial disclosure, depending on the nature of information and government agency, unless if the data involves national security. While information in private administration is not accessible to the public. Government agencies may only require private administrations to report certain data, such as earnings, employee demographics, time records, among other related data required by certain government agencies.
 Public administration must operate in public eye. Public administrator’s actions are constantly subjected to public scrutiny, carrying out public policy and also responding to public demands. While an administrator in a private administration may work in relative obscurity.
 Public officials tend to have no special motivations but rather maximize work for self-interest as power, prestige and income or considerations of the public interest. While private officials are highly motivated by various ways such as promotions, awards, appreciation among others.
 Tasks in public institution are decided by politicians and executed by administration. But in private institutions tasks are decided by their owners or associated personnel and executed by the same people.
SIMILARITIES IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ADMINISTRATION
 Political aspect is apparent in both public and private .Policy decisions normally affect the companies directly or indirectly, through laws and regulations and financial support whether they are private or public administration.
 Both public and private administration operates within defined laws and acts from various government agencies. Both public and private institution are subject to specific laws from particular government agencies.
 Both are characterized by production of goods and services to either citizens or consumers. Private administration produces goods and products for their consumers. Similarly in public administration, goods and services are produced for public.
 Public and private officers are both guaranteed private lives. Despite high level of publicness with public officers, they are however guaranteed private life and as well as with private officers whereby their private life is highly guaranteed.
 There is a similar flow of power which is hierarchically structured from top to bottom in both private and public administration. Authority structure is organized hierarchically reflecting pyramid structure. Commands and instructions are from top downwards the chain of authority.
 Superior-sub-ordinates relationship is clear in both public and private administration. In both environments sub-ordinates are expected to receive and obey commands from their superior(s). For efficient and effective administrative work must commands must be obeyed and incase otherwise, there is a risk of sanctions and failures.
 There is a clearly defined allocation of responsibilities and functions. Both public and private officers and personnel are given various responsibilities and functions based on their qualification. Therefore each and everyone performs tasks that they are best qualified. Thus specialization plays a fundamental role in both sectors regardless of whether is public or private.
 There a common process of grouping activities into departments in both public and private administration. Division of labour creates specialists who need coordination. This coordination is facilitated by grouping specialists together in departments which have functions of similar nature. There are various departments of a private or public administration which include the following depending on the nature of organization:
• Functional departmentalization - Grouping activities by functions performed. for example human resources, IT, accounting, manufacturing, logistics, marketing, and engineering. Functional departmentalization can be used in all types of organizations.
• Product departmentalization - Grouping activities by product line. Tasks can also be grouped according to a specific product or service, thus placing all activities related to the product or the service under one manager.
• Customer departmentalization - Grouping activities on the basis of common customers or types of customers. Jobs may be grouped according to the type of customer served by the organization. The assumption is that customers in each department have a common set of problems and needs that can best be met by specialists.
• Geographic departmentalization - Grouping activities on the basis of territory..
• Process departmentalization - Grouping activities on the basis of product or service or customer or citizens flow..
Owing to the complexity of tasks and the competitive environment in which organizations operate, they often use a combination of the above-mentioned methods in departmentalization.
 Administration is based on written documents making both public and private offices the centre of modern business and modern government. Therefore technology plays an important role in processing data to useful information. Specific government agencies may require some information from private sector or whole information from public sector.






REFERENCE
 Wilson, Woodrow. June, 1887. The Study of Administration, Political Science Quarterly 2
 Drucker, Peter (1954), The Practice of Management, Harper, New York
 Gulick, Luther and Urwick, Lyndall (1937) (eds), Papers on the Science of Administration, Institute of Public Administration, New York
 Koontz, Harold & Cyril J. O'Donnell (1964), Principles of Management, McGraw-Hill, New York
 March, James G. and Simon, Herbert A. (1958), Organizations, John Wiley & Sons
 Haroon A. Khan. Introduction to Public Administration. University Press of America, 2008
 Denhardt , Robert B. and Janet Vinzant Denhardt (2000). "The New Public Service: Serving Rather than Steering." Public Administration Review 60(6)