Public Organization Management and Its Specifics

Non-Cultural Management Issues Within the Organization

As a concept, organizational culture can be regarded as a specific pattern of behavior and interactional skills within a work team. These skills appear in the result of the adoption of the organizational norms, rules, values or philosophy by the members of the group. Since, to some extent, organizational culture is based on knowledge, it is rather a subconscious phenomenon. It is reflected in the working climate, and it creates an organizational environment that affects the employees’ communication both within the company and outside of it.

The management’s cultural intervention actions thus concerned with the changes in the style of the employees’ relations with each other and the customers or the business partners as well. It also concerns the advancement of company’s image, the corporative credos, philosophy, and conceptual ideas that constitute the basis for the organizational culture.

Organizational culture plays an important role in the managerial processes. However, not all the behavioral problems can be regarded as the cultural issues. For example, the security challenges and the disciplinary violations may be linked to the organizational culture to a lesser extent, if at all. The organizational security management actions are aimed to the provision of the safe community interactions and the property safety. These actions influence the employees’ behavior.

The management can strengthen the security policies or, on the contrary, loosen it in dependence on the kind of business, the level of trust to the employees, and some other aspects. In the security actions, the culture may be manifested in the style of the guard-employee relations, but the security policy itself should not be regarded as the matter of the organizational culture. And the same thing is with the individual violations of the corporative discipline. In this case, the violation is rather the manifestation of the personal disorganization, and it is connected with the legal aspects of the contractual rights and responsibilities.

Balance Between Rules and Discretion Within an Organization

The bureaucracy plays an essential role in the maintenance of the working processes. It is proved to be especially efficient in control of the financial operations, legal support, and labor regulations. However, when the rules become too strict and solid, it may lead to the counter-productive results. The managers thus need to have a certain amount of freedom in decision-making that would allow flexibility and alterations in actions according to the particular conditions.

The management of the hotel business can be taken as an example. The main profit of the hotels comes from the room sales and the customer services, the principal working processes thus are concerned with the support of the high attendance rates. The hotel sales are seasonal and bound to particular rules in pricing that depend on the time of the year. When the pricing policies are too rigid, it can cause low profitability.

Therefore, the managers need to take into consideration both internal and external factors. The decisions should be adjusted to the statistic data of the company, as well as the overall political and market situations that can affect business performance. The efficiency of the managerial process in this kind of business depends on the ability of critical assessment of the financial and performance outcomes and foresee the potential changes in the market environment.

The mere following the rules cannot provide the high performance and productivity. Therefore, the regulation and discretion must be appropriately balanced. The rules can have a good effect on disciplinary and legal controls, but, for example, the marketing or strategic management departments should be allowed to act freely yet with the implementation of judgmental approach and the detailed evaluation of the various factors.

Organizational Budget Plan and Goals of the Organization

Budgeting is regarded as “a process of systematically relating the expenditure of funds to the accomplishment of planned objectives” (Schick 244). The budget plans provide the adjustment between the company’s investments and the business outcomes. Before the company makes an investment in a particular idea that is expected to be profitable, the elaboration of the strategy takes place. The organizational productivity significantly depends on the effective budget distribution; therefore, the budget plan development is crucial for the positive results in business.

The first step of the budget planning includes determination of the long-term objective. Then, it is important to make the assessments and investigations of the potential threats and advantages. The weaknesses and strengths of the company must be evaluated as well. The managers need to take into consideration of the possible turns of events, and only then it is possible to purchase an input. While elaborating the budget plan, the company can use its experience and the measurements of the previous outputs.

The measurement of outputs is important as it helps to detect “the ratio of outputs to inputs” and “the extent to which actual output corresponds to the organization’s goals and objectives” (Anthony 467). The development of the budget plan that is based on the statistic data indicating the efficiency of the output and its correspondence to the expectations helps to avoid the mistakes and reach the higher level of effectiveness.

Roles Within Organizations: Executives, Managers, and Operators

According to Gulick, “work division is the foundation of organization” (Gulick 3). It is in the state of nature that people have different abilities and qualities, and therefore, they play different roles in society or business. The role of an executive, a manager, and an operator is each significant in its own way. These roles provide the best performance through cooperation and when are proportionally combined with each other. In case the company’s working processes are carried out only by operators, it is possible to assume that the company is not going to descent into chaos in a short time; nevertheless, the excellent operability cannot last for long.

Usually, the operators act according to the rules adopted in the organization, and they function well until the company doesn’t face the unexpected circumstances or events. The operators, when adequately motivated and rewarded, may efficiently execute the practical tasks. However, in the face of the unforeseen events, the operators become not able to maintain the business conduction, and the company loses its competitiveness in the market. Without the proper guidance and the timely evaluations of the external conditions, the company is at risk. It means that the organization without any leadership is bound to fail. Thus, in the rapidly developing and ever changing environment, for the company that can’t adjust and apply critical thinking the failure is inevitable and is only a matter of time.

In the well-organized business, managers and executives take on the roles of leaders. Leadership is essential for any kind of business because it provides inspiration, takes responsibility for urgent decisions and guides the overall organizational development. Just like managers will not be able to sustain the business without their subordinates, the operators can’t maintain their operability without management.

Multiple Vague and Conflicting Goals in Public Management

The vague and generalized objectives and goals negatively influence the business strategy and, therefore, provoke the poor organizational performance. The for-profit organizations usually do not hesitate in the goals detection, while the nonprofit companies often face difficulties in this. Usually their goal “is to provide services” (Anthony 35). Such blurred idea creates challenges for management and affects all the aspects of business conduction: from the employees’ motivation to the financial and performance outcomes.

In the example of the USDA, the lack of the determination in the objectives elaboration interferes with the effective strategy development due to inability to define the short-term goals and achievements. Without the particular goals, it is hard to assess the outcomes and outputs, evaluate the work and to criticize it. It creates the lack of measurement standards that make the decision-making ungrounded. Therefore, the lack of determination in the decision-making causes the poor strategic planning, inefficiency of management control policies, and low operational control.

In the nonprofit organizations “there is no accurate way of estimating the relationship between inputs and outputs” (Anthony 42). Therefore, it is hard to make any investment. It also affects the employees’ salaries and performances. When there is no standardized criterion for the performance assessment, it is hard to make a decision about the spending incensement. When an employee performs at the peak of his or her abilities but the achievements remain neglected, and the salary isn’t increased, the employee loses motivation and the job satisfaction declines. This issue creates new challenges for management by raising the staff turnover.

Works Cited

Anthony, Robert Newton. Management Control in Nonprofit Organizations, 1984. Web.

Gulick, Luther. Notes on the Theory of Organization: With Special Reference to Government in the United States, 1937. Web.

Schick, Allen. “The Road to PBB: The Stages of Budget Reform.” Public Administration Review 26.4 (1966): 243-258. Web.