Organization Theory and Public Administration: Past, Present and Future

Organization Theory and Public Administration: Past, Present and Future

Introduction

Organization as the object of study involved management, economics, sociology, psychology, political science and other sciences. Each of these disciplines is consider only part of the processes in the organization. Thus, management considers those issues that are related to the elements of the organization and the management, communication, interaction with the organization and powers, to build a network. Economics studies the elements of compensation and benefits, organization of production, the economic laws of development, including proportional and balanced development, conformity of production relations to the nature of the productive forces. Political science examines attitudes to political organizations, problems of domestic and foreign policy (Sausman & Rachel, 2004).

However, this is only the elements that make up the organization as a whole as a process and as a phenomenon. Studies in the field of control theory promote excretion of organization theory as an independent new science. It is designed in an integrated approach to the key processes that take place in formal and informal associations of people and their communications (Michael &Harmon, 1994). This paper focuses on the organizational theory and public administration considering its past, present and future. Throughout this paper different organizational theories will be discussed and leadership characters will also be explained. At the end of this paper, values of bureaucracy will be explained in terms of American public administration.

Discussion

The Dimensions and Elements of Public Organizations

Governments are organizations which correspond, as is well known, meet the general interests of their respective communities. Any public administration is an organization but also entities part thereof, whether formally independent (agencies, autonomous bodies and public enterprises) or not (central departments) can organizations considered for analytical purposes. All irrespective of their environment is set by other administrative units and their objectives and decisions are conditioned by the criteria of higher authorities. E.g. a municipality is an organization but any of its administrative units differentiated, formally independent or not, can be analyzed as if they were organizations in its own right as they have all the elements that characterize an organization.

Analyze the various bodies or administrative units that make up the government and organizations is the goal of this book but how realities that we can analyze and at first glance seem very complex? Indeed, organizations are phenomena that possess polyhedral several dimensions and, therefore, must be analyzed from different angles and with different levels treatment. An organization articulates several dimensions that require approaches specific and accurate but without losing sight of a more comprehensive understanding that allows appreciate the contact points and synergies between the different dimensions. In the next section we will see how the different currents or Approaches to Organization Theory have tended to analyze in depth only some of these dimensions, piecemeal approaches that have left aside the rest of dimensions.

Progress and contributions of Organization Theory

The progress and contributions of Organization Theory for the two decades illustrate that organizations are more than goals, ...