Should Government Be Run More like Business?

Those who studied management in business school, sociologists favoring organizational theory, and proponents of the works of Barry Bozeman may favor the approach that government should be run more like a business (Kettl & Fesler, 2009). However, governmental public organizations are different from private businesses in public nature and processes, personnel, and measurement of performance, among other factors. Administration is not the same across all settings, and public administration has challenges and restrictions that other private businesses do not.

First, government is public. Barry Bozeman argues that since public authority affects all organizations in some ways, that all organizations are public to a degree (Kettle & Fesler, 2009). However, while administration is found in all large organizations, not all organizations are public in the same ways. The primary difference is that public organizations administer the law; they turn the words of legislation into action in society. The purpose, budget, and structure of the public organization is determined by legal authority, and every action of the public administrators must also be traceable to those legal authorities (Kettl & Fesler, 2009). This is not true in private businesses (Kettl & Fesler). Public organizations also have different processes than private businesses, and must be more open to public scrutiny than private businesses (Shafritz & Hyde, 2008). For example, the federal Antideficiency Act forbids public organizations from spending any money on anything not authorized by a legal authority for that organization, compared to private businesses that can spend money on anything that is not illegal and do not have laws telling them exactly how to spend their money (Kettl & Fesler, 2009). Thus, the administration of turning legislation into action simply is not comparable to the administration of a for-profit private business and its commodities. While both government and businesses deal with organizational issues, leadership, and conflict resolution, the distinctly public nature of government means that the administration of public and private organizations is necessarily very different.

Second, the management of personnel in public government organizations is different than in private organizations. Running a public organization comprised of amateurs is very different than running a private business comprised of long-time career workers, and since public organizations tend to have higher turnover and newer employees with fewer career professionals, many workers spend a majority of their time simply learning how to do their jobs (Kettl & Fesler, 2009). Unlike in private businesses where current employees train their successors, public organizations almost never do this (Shafritz & Hyde, 2008). In addition, in private organizations, management has clear authority over staff, making it easier to achieve managerial objectives, but in public organizations the lines are blurred-the political appointees do not have the same authority over the unionized civil servants, and hostility can result (Shafritz & Hyde, 2008). Public administrators answer to courts, legislators, their superiors, and the public, while private administrators answer to their superiors. Private business management plans are simply inadequate to address the personnel and management issues common in public organizations.

Lastly, measures of performance differ greatly between private business and government. Private businesses can look to well-established market practices to see how they are doing, but public organizations must instead to see how well they are matching the objectives of the law which they are carrying out (Kettl & Fesler, 2009; Shafritz & Hyde, 2008). Since the laws are often intentionally vague with little to no guidance in how to administer them, public administrators having nothing near the same kind of concrete measures of performance as private business administrators.

These are not the only big differences between public and private management issues; space and time-constraints prevent discussion about equity and efficiency, media relations, and organizational performance (Shafritz & Hyde, 2008). Before meeting with the elected officials, I would read "The 'Government Should Run Like a Business' Mantra" by J. Beckett (2000) and "Public and Private Management: Are They Fundamentally Alike in all Unimportant Respects?" by Graham T. Allison (1979) and "Comparing Public and Private Organizations" by Rainey, Backoff, and Levine (1976) and make copies available for others' perusal before and after the meeting. With more information, we can build a more inclusive plan for administration, rather than looking at business administration as one-size-fits-all and trying to cram it, no matter how ill-fitting, onto a public organization.