If you have issues viewing or accessing this file contact us at NCJRS.gov. ~-~~----~--- - /',, '1 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT A Primer for Masters Published by the National Institute of Corrections, U.S. Department of Justice September 1983 l · -. -,.--- ... PUBLIC AIJ.fINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT JUt }L 1[~~4 This overview of public administration and management was A Primer For Masters excerpted from the unpublished Handbook for Special Masters fJ. CQ Ui SETI'O N S (Master's Version). The companion Handbook for Special Masters This somewhat oversimplified survey of public administr~­ tion and manageme~t provides masters with a basic understanding (Judicial Version) was published in August 1983. That volume, of the theories and practices of public administration. Most masters will spend a part of their monitoring careers trying when supplemented with this primer and The Law of Prisoners' to promote a measure of efficiency in bureaucratic organizations whose problems may be due largely to bad management. In some Rights -- A Summary for Masters, provides the new master with a systems and institutions, the will to reform simply exceeds the capacity to plan and implement change effectively. comprehensive overview of the practice of mastering in a correc- However, this does not mean that sound administration and tiona1 system. good management are unknown in corrections. Over the past two decades, correctional managers have undergone a remarkable meta­ morphosis. Where formerly few administrators received any ex­ posure to formal management training, now business schools and This pamphlet was written by J. Michael Keating, Jr., who academic criminal justice programs compete to attract and instruct correctional managers in basic principles of public administra­ also contributed to and did the final editing on the Handbook. tion. The contribution of the now-dismantled Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) in underwriting, both directly and indirectly, the education of correctional personnel in public administration has been substantial. The result is steadily improving management of programs, institutions, and systems by a growing cadre of professionJl correctional managers. U.S. Department of Justice Whatever the professional level of key personnel in insti­ National Institute of Justice tutions monitored by a master, the defendants will be looking This documenl has been reproduced exacJly as received from Ihe to the master for meaningful review of their pls'i'·dng and bud­ person or organization onginatlng it. POints of view or opinions stated geting efforts and sometimes even direct help i~ carrying out In thiS document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the offiCial position or poliCies of the National Institute of administrative tasks related to the remedial order. This means Justice. that masters must often deal with correctional personnel in mat­ Permission to reproduce this c~ matenal ha~ been ters requiring some understanding of the basic principles of granted by public administration and a degree of familiarity with the theory Public Dorna ';.11~IC U. S. Dept. of Jus'~t-;-ic-e--~- and jargon of modern management techniques. to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) This primer, therefore, seeks to provide a brief overview Further reproduction outside of the NCJRS system requires permis­ of management theory and its application to public administra­ sion of the co~t owner. tion. It also includes a glossary of management and public admin­ istration terms in common use among correctional administrators and an annotated bibliography for masters who Wish to pursue the subject further. Public administration is a practical science or discipline that seeks to identify and apply principles and sound management in governmental agencies and institutions. Public administra­ tion became recognized as a distinct pursuit in the 1930s with the explosive growth of the federal government under the New Deal. General management theory, on the other hand, has its roots in the 19th Century and the industrial revolution. - 1- - -~ ~ ".--- - - - - -----~--~-----~--.-------------- correlation between prod t' . The development of an organized and modern science of manage­ in the deCiSions affecti~C ~Vl~y and employees' partiCipation ment in this country can be traced to Frederick W. Taylor, whose studies described the wor:inhelra~ork. Th: ~esults of the Hawthorne career in various Pennsylvania steel mills eventually resulted system and demonstrated thatg'~f e ~s.a alnlature or aicro-social . in an emerging primer on management in the first two and a half and groupings had a profound elffeormta lntekrpersonal relationships decades of this century. Taylor's theories provided a practical, c on wor er behaVior. penetrating analysis of everyday work with consequent recommenda­ The doctrinal linka b tions for the division, organization, and control of labor that and William G. Ouchirs c~;re::wb:ntthel~awthorne experiments have played a key role in industry in much of the world. and direct. Intervenin dev s -se er on "Theory Z" is clear Taylor'S inductive and scientific approach to management ca~on on management pra~tice:l~h:ents hav: formed.a behavioralist recognized that the growing size and complexity of industry gen­ ShIP, and organization and finds ihem~haslze~ motIVation, leader­ ity in the personal and social rela~' eYh~o Increased productiv- erated problems that could not be solved without systematic plan­ supervisors rather than' h . Ions. IpS among workers and ning and organization of work efforts. !n an increasin¥ly com: factors of production. In t e manIpulatIon and refinement of petitive marketplace, control of waste, Improved operatIng effI­ ciency, and careful cost accounting became essential. The focus, then, of Taylor's "scientific" management was on improving the Hot many of the behavioral' t ' h . efficiency of work performance; the contributions of subsequent c~rrec~ions. Aside from scatte~:ds ~ ~okrles have penetr~ted scientific management theorists have ranged from the time and dIrectIon of "partici at an u ewarm gestures In the motion studies of Lillian and Frank Gilbreth to the Gantt charts trators have largely ~hu~~~dm~~~:e~entbtr correctional adminis­ Part of the reason may be correctr~~!; ~:e~.mt~naglem~nt strategies. adopted during World War I and widely used today in both the self as a paramilitar '. .a Ilona lmage of it- private and public sectors. 'only slowly. Still a~o~rganlzatlon, an lmage that is fading Once pragmatic American business adopted the tenets of the ioralist theories may beh~her~ason for the reject~on of behav­ are applied to relations betwe:~raJ~~t.o~ce behaVIoral prinCiples scientific or traditional approach to management, it applied there may be a further h lnlS rators and employees, them with fervor. In the aftermath of the Roosevelt years, ex­ staff and inmates an ~~:IC~o apply them to relations between panding government also sought to apply scientific principles personnel. ' me prospect for most correctional to manage the operations of newly emerging bureau~racies .. T~e work of Luther Gulick and Lt. Col. Lyndall F. Urwlck --prInCI­ pally their Papers on the Science of Administration published The sharp dichotomy sug t d h b in 1937 -- introduced basic principles of public administration, agers and behavioralists' ges e ere etween scientific man- popularized such terms as "span of control," advanced the distinc­ side discounts entirely t~: ~~~:r~pp~re~ththan real, since neither tion between line and staff functions, and coined the acronym Moreover, since World War 11th s Inslg ts and contributions. in public administration known as POSDCORB, which stands for schOOl of .anagemen~ thought'ha efem~hgenbe of a third broad The quantitative approach to s ur er lurred the distinction. Planning, Qrganizing, ~taffin~, ~irecting, £oordinating,.Report­ rng, and Budgeting and summarIzes the full cycle of publIC sector has focused on the potential ~~~:~:be~~ and PfUbliC adm~nistration management. All of these concepts and formulations have dominated cybernetics (or Com uter-b I u Ions 0 mathematICS and public administration ever since; the overwhelming majori~y of and in conjunction ~ith tr::~~.tec~n~~ogr),.both individually management practices in corrections today can be traced dIrectly pology, sociolo and Ilona ISClpllnes such as anthro- back to the writings of Gulick and Urwick. Modern progeny of on human and or:r~izati~~rfhb!h:~io:O nP~O:idd new perspe~tiyes scientific management theories in public administration include models. Very few of the results of t: °d evelop predIctIve systems analysis (which perceives both the internal and external the Possible exce tio f . ese evelopments, with environments of public agencies as an integrated whole) and the systems, have yetPto beoap~~T~~t~rlzed man~gement information planning-program-budgeting system (PPBS) of former Secretary administration as a wh . In c~rrectlons. Indeed, public of Defense Robert McNamara and his Pentagon "whiz kids" of the practical Use of the s~l: ~s struggl~ng to understand and make early 1960s. of the quantitative app~O!~he~ob:!!!~~:e~~~ complex contributions Beginning in the 1920s, however, there was an increasingly adverse reaction to scientific management which, to a growing specii~~s~o~~~a~ss~~~o~s of.management have spawned a horde of number of c~itics, smacked of exploitation of the working man. pac~ on indivi~uals ande~~:~~r~:tI~~!.ha~~n~~d a tremendous im­ The primary. impetus to this reaction was a series of remarkable ~esl'!endgl! cohncept, management by objectives (~:gr), wfhorl'ChexamPle, experiments conducted at the Hawthorne (Illinois) plant of Western w In t e early 1950s as a ' was con- Electric, which provided the first objective proof of a positive agers might partiCipate in the ~!~CbIS~ hthrough whic~ middle man­ a IS ment of theIr own goals - 2- - 3- ting, evaluating, and reporting policies and practices. That and subsequently be evaluated on the basis of their success in would be a hard task for aany individual administrators; it be­ aeeting those goals.