Being Agile, Being Future-Proof
Current is the era of a new breed of enterprises – startups that can easily disrupt big existing companies. While startups majorly focus on penetrating the new markets and adapting themselves just when time demands, the existing businesses are busy fighting the internal battles over power and resources. And probably this is what that keeps […]
What is Organization Development ? – Six Step Model to Understand Organization
A set up which brings together individuals from different backgrounds, varied interests and specializations on a common platform for them to work as a single unit and achieve certain predefined goals is called an organization. An organization must make money for its survival. It is essential for the employees to deliver their level best and […]
Role of Catalysts in Organizational Change
The other articles in this series on Change Management have listed the business imperatives for change as well as the various barriers to change that arise from internal and external resisters. In this article, we examine the other side of driving change and that is to do with the role of people who can act […]
Political Science and Other Social Sciences
Political Science and Other Social Sciences As mentioned in the introductory article in this module, political science is the systematic study of the state and the workings of the political economy. The study of political science gives people the ability to influence and persuade the authorities to conform to broad developmental thrusts and to steer […]
How Risks Affect Companies Providing Financial Services
Risk management, as a concept, is studied and implemented across all industries. Over the years, even companies with the most mundane business have started implementing risk management practices. However, there is no denying the fact that risk management as a discipline is more applicable to the financial services industry than to any other industry. The […]
The behavioral approach to public administration owes its genesis to the Human Relations Movement of the 1930s.
The movement started off as a protest to the traditional approaches to public administration that focused on organizations, institutionalization, rules, and code of conducts etc with absolutely no mention of people who are the center of all these activities.
The pioneering work done by Taylor and the emergence of Scientific Management created quite stir not just in the industrial sector but also in management and study of public administration.
Henry Fayol worked on his Fayolism at around the same time as Taylor and came up with different set of functions and principles for the management bringing in terms like discipline, unity of command, equity and team spirit.
Herbort Sumon was one of the torch bearers of this moment and stated that administrative behavior is part of behavioral sciences and the study of public administration cannot be complete without the study of individual and collective human behavior in administrative situations. The behavioral approach has certain salient features like:
This approach made more sense and had greater relevance than earlier approaches as it took into consideration the fact that the political, social, economical and psychological environments have an effect on human motivation and which ultimately has an effect on the work output of an individual.
It also helped to develop an understanding of what, how and why of the way the public administrators act. It showed that the way administration is conducted is influenced by human sentiments, presumptions biases and perception, which many of us may have experienced firsthand during our interaction with government organizations and public administrators.
Behavioral approach has contributed to the study of public administration in many ways like the scholars started studying cross-structural and cross-cultural administrative behaviors and which further paved the way for the comparative study of public administration.
Like all new things, this approach too has its fair share of criticism and the critics have ruthlessly questioned the utility of this approach in the analysis of administrative problems.
They find it limited in scope and of little use. The study of public administration goes beyond small social groups and deals with large communities and therefore the behavioral approach falls short.
The modern behavioral approach is leaning towards becoming more action oriented and prescription format nevertheless. Roscoe Martin and his Craft Perspective define the shift better.
It concerns itself with the decisions, outcomes and the political skill needed to perform a particular managerial job.
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