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Theories of Public Organization, Fifth Edition

Robert B. Denhardt

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Learning About Public

Organizations

D wight Waldo’s appraisal of the importance of public organizations in our

daily lives is even more relevant today than when it was written over fifty years
ago (Waldo, 1955). During that time, public organizations at the federal, state, and
local levels have grown tremendously, to the point that today over 23 million
people are employed by government in this country. More important, the range and
complexity of the issues addressed by government agencies have been extended far
beyond what we might have envisioned even a few years ago. Because of the
serious impact public organizations have on our lives, when we talk
about administration, as Waldo says, we had better be intelligent.
But, as Chester Barnard points out, we must also maintain a sense of the quality of
organizational life. Although we often think of the public bureaucracy as an impersonal
mechanism, in fact, behind each of our encounters with public organizations lies a lengthy
and complex chain of human events, understandings, and behaviors developed in the
everyday lives of people just like us. Organizations are indeed the products of individual
human actions—actions with special meanings and significance to those who act. The
allegedly impersonal organization is the backdrop for a very personal world.
For this reason, public organizations may look quite different, depending
on our particular perspective. As an example, we often talk about the endless
maze of confusion and red tape that seems to characterize public organizations.
Certain agencies, despite their alleged interest in efficiency and service, seem
designed to prevent satisfactory solutions to our problems. On the one hand,
the bureaucracy may seem to be so routinized as to be uncaring; on the other, it
may seem so arbitrary as to be cruel. Consequently, we should not be surprised
that many Americans have a rather low opinion of public bureaucracy.

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2 CHAPTER1

But this picture changes as we become more familiar with the bureaucracy and the
people who inhabit it. These individuals are, for the most part, highly concerned and
competent, working to make a living and seeking to deal effectively with the complex
issues they face. For most, the old notion of public service is not dead. Working for the
government is not just another job; it is a chance to participate in solving difficult
public problems. It is the ‘‘real world,’’ in which people experience pain and pride, joy
and disappointment. It is a very personal place.
In one sense, this book is concerned with what it means to be intelligent about
public organizations, but it is also concerned with how our knowledge may be used
to deal compassionately with human problems. We will be concerned with a fairly
basic set of questions: How can we develop a better and more systematic
understanding of public organizations? What do we need to know in order to make
public organizations more responsive? How can we employ the knowledge we
have gained so as to improve the quality of our lives?

THEACQUISITIONOFKNOWLEDGE

These questions have practical as well as theoretical importance. Any admin-

istrative practitioner must constantly (though not necessarily consciously) ask
what knowledge can be generated and how it can be applied. What do I need to
know about this organization, how can I find out, and how can I use this
information? In all cases, the manager must make certain choices about the
accumulation of knowledge, then make decisions and take actions based on
that knowledge. Indeed, one might argue that issues of knowledge acquisition
lie at the heart of administration.
Of course, people gain knowledge in many ways. Our understanding of
public organizations is clearly influenced by events that occur even before we
regularly encounter those organizations. Our experiences in the family teach us
much about power, authority, and communication, while our experiences in
church and in school present us with information about more structured orga-
nizations. By the time we begin to deal with major public organizations, either
as members or as clients, we have been thoroughly socialized in terms of some
basic patterns of behavior and action. Nevertheless, there is still a great deal of
infor-mation we must acquire and a number of different ways in which we can
acquire it. We can depend on rumor or hearsay, we can investigate the
organization’s past practices, we can listen and learn from the advice of others
in the organization, or we can let ourselves be guided by efficiency experts and
organization develop-ment specialists.

Deriving Theory from Practice

In each of these ways, we are constructing our own personal approach to or theory
of public organization; we are seeking explanations or understanding that

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LEAR N I N GAB O UTPU B LI C O R GAN I ZATIO N S 3

will allow us systematically to view public organizations, their members, and

their clients. The body of observations and evaluations we make may be said to
constitute implicit theories of public organizations, in the sense that although
they may rarely be articulated or even consciously considered, they constitute a
set of propositions about the way in which public organizations work. Most
important, these theories do not exist apart from practice; they are integrally
related to the way we act as members or clients of public agencies. Our every
action occurs within the framework of the theories we hold, or, more precisely,
as an expression of our theoretical positions. In the field of action, theory and
practice are one. This statement seems simple enough, but exactly the opposite
characterization, that theory and practice are disconnected, is in fact the one
more frequently heard in contemporary discussions of public administration.
Administrative practitioners often complain that theorists, from the Founding
Fathers to present-day academics, live and work in ivory towers so distant
from the world of practice that their principles and pronouncements hardly
correspond to life in the real world. Meanwhile, academicians, even those most
concerned with the relevance of administrative studies, complain that
practitioners in public agencies are so concerned with the nuts and bolts of
administration that they fail to maintain a theoretical overview. The gulf
between theory and practice seems too great to bridge.
Far more than a contest between academicians and practitioners is at stake
here; rather, as we will see, the theory-practice issue is central to the question of
developing an intelligent and compassionate approach to public organizations. For
this reason, a central aim of this book is to develop an understanding of public
organizations that will enable us to integrate theory and practice, reflection and
action. To that end, subsequent chapters present an overview of those theories of
the individual, the organization, and society that have been proposed as guide-lines
for explaining the actions of public organizations; a specific question will be how
those theories and the arguments on which they have been built inform our own
processes of theory building—processes that lead to our implicit theories of
administration. In the course of reviewing these works, the relationship between
theory and practice is critically examined, and this relationship is ultimately
reconstructed around the concept of personal action.

The central aim of this book is to develop an understanding of public organizations that
will enable us to integrate theory and practice, reflection and action.

Different Approaches: Case 1

We have indicated that both academicians and practitioners have sought to solve
the problem of knowledge acquisition in public administration. In order to
understand in a practical manner the issues they have raised, we will examine two
cases that illustrate some of the central topics in public administration theory. In

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4 CHAPTER1

each case, you might begin by asking how you as an observer would
characterize the various actors and how you would analyze their relationships
with one another. What kind of information (complete or incomplete, objective
or sub-jective, and so on) do you have available? (Typically, students
reviewing cases such as these comment that they need more information, that
the case did not tell them enough. But, of course, those involved would say the
same thing; it just seems that there is never enough information.) Does your
asking for more information suggest that you hold a certain view of
organizations that would be made more complete with the addition of this
information? If your questions reflect a set of assumptions about life in public
organizations, how would you characterize those assumptions?
You might then consider the case from the standpoint of those involved.
Try to understand, from their point of view, exactly what was taking place.
Specif-ically, you might try to reconstruct their analysis of the situation. On
what knowledge or understanding of organizational life did they act? What
information did they have? What information did they lack? How would they
have charac-terized their general approach to life in public organizations?
What expectations about human behavior did they hold? How did they see the
primary tasks of their organization? What was their understanding of the role
of government agencies and those working in such agencies? What was the
relationship between their frame of reference and their behavior?
Our first case illustrates the relationship between the way we view organ-
izational life and the way we act in public organizations. Ken Welch was a
summer intern in the management services division of a large federal
installation. During his three-month assignment, Ken was to undertake a
variety of projects related to management concerns in the various laboratories
at the center. The management services division was part of the personnel
department, but per-sonnel in the division often acted as troubleshooters for
top management, so the unit enjoyed considerable prestige within the
department and, correspondingly, received special attention from its director.
After a period of about two weeks, during which Ken was given a general
introduction to the work of the division, the department, and the center, Rick
Arnold, one of the permanent analysts, asked Ken to help him with a study of the
recruitment process in one of the computer laboratories. This was exactly the kind
of project Ken had hoped would grow out of his summer experience, and he
jumped at the opportunity to become involved. He was especially pleased that
Rick, who was clearly one of the favorites of the division’s chief and was jokingly
but respectfully known as ‘‘Superanalyst,’’ had asked for his help. In addition to
gaining some experience himself, Ken would have the opportunity to watch a
high-powered management analyst at work. Moreover, since it was clear that Rick
had the ear of the division’s chief, there were possibilities for at least observing
some of the interactions at that level, perhaps even participating in meetings at the
highest levels of the center’s management. All in all, it was an attractive
assignment, one on which Ken immediately began to work.
As it turned out, however, Ken could not do a great deal. Since Rick was the
principal analyst, he clearly wanted to take the lead in this project, something that

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LEAR N I N GAB O UTPU B LI C O R GAN I ZATIO N S 5

seemed perfectly appropriate to Ken. But because Rick had several other ongoing
projects, there were considerable periods in which Ken found himself with little to
do on the recruitment project. He was therefore more than happy to help out when
Eddie Barth, one of the older members of the staff, asked if Ken would help him
put together some organizational charts requested by top management. Eddie was
one of a small group of technicians who had formed one of the two units brought
together several years before to form the management services division. Ken soon
discovered that the construction of an organizational chart, especially in the hands
of these technicians, became a highly specialized process, involving not only
endless approvals but also complicated problems of graphic design and
reproduction far beyond what might be imagined. Ken was certainly less interested
in this work than in the more human problems he encountered in the recruitment
project, but Eddie had always been cordial and seemed to be happy to have some
help. So Ken drew charts. After a couple of weeks of working on the two projects,
Ken began to receive signals that all was not well with his work. Another intern in
the office overheard a conversation in the halls about the overly energetic interns
who had been hired. One of the secretaries commented that she hoped Ken could
‘‘stand the heat.’’ Since Ken felt neither overly energetic nor under any heat, these
comments were curious. Maybe they were talking about someone else, he thought.

A few days later, however, Ken was asked to come to Jim Pierson’s office.
Jim, another of the older members of the staff, who, Ken thought, had even
headed the technical unit, had remained rather distant, although not unpleasant,
during Ken’s first weeks at the center. While others had been quite friendly,
inviting Ken to parties and asking him to join the personnel department’s
softball team, Jim had seemed somewhat aloof. But then Ken and Jim had very
little contact on the job, so maybe, Ken reasoned, it was not so strange after all.
Ken saw the meeting as a friendly gesture on Jim’s part and looked forward to
getting better acquainted. Any hopes of a friendly conversation, however, were
imme-diately dispelled: as soon as Ken arrived, Jim began a lecture on how to
manage one’s time, specifically pointing out that taking on too many projects
meant that none would be well done. Although there were no specifics, Jim
was clearly referring to the two projects on which Ken had been working.
Ken was stunned by the meeting. No one had in any way questioned the
quality of his work. There were no time conflicts between the two projects. And
even if there had been, Ken wondered why Jim would take it on himself to deliver
such a reprimand. Later that afternoon, Ken shared his conversation with the other
intern, who commented that Jim had always felt angered that, when the two units
were brought together, he was not made director. Ken hinted at the controversy the
next day in a conversation with Rick but received only a casual remark about the
‘‘out-of-date’’ members of the division. Ken began to feel that he was a pawn in
some sort of office power struggle and immediately resolved to try to get out of the
middle. As soon as he had an opportunity to see the division chief, he explained the
whole situation, including his feeling that no real prob-lems existed and that he
was being used. The chief listened carefully but offered no real suggestions. He
said he would keep an eye on the situation.

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6 CHAPTER1

Later in the week, at a beer-drinking session after a softball game, the director
of the department of personnel asked how the internship was going. In the ensuing
conversation, Ken told him what had happened. The director launched into a long
discourse on the difficulties he had experienced in reorganizing units within his
department. But he also pointed out how the combination of the two units into the
division had decreased his span of control and made the operation of the
department considerably easier. It was clear that he preferred the more analytical
approach to management services represented by the chief and by Superanalyst. In
part, he said that the reorganization had buried one of his main problems, or, Ken
thought later, maybe he said it would do so soon.
This case illustrates a wide range of issues confronting those who wish to
know more about public organizations. What motivates people working in public
organizations? How can we explain faulty patterns of communication in public
agencies? How can we best understand the relationship between bureaucracies and
bureaucrats? How can we cope with, or perhaps even direct, organizational
change? But even more important for our purposes, this case indicates the central
role of the acquisition of knowledge as the basis of our actions. Each of the
persons involved here was faced with the problem of accumulating knowledge
about the specific circumstances; then he had to determine how that information
might fit into (or require him to modify) his own frame of reference, his own
implicit theories about how people and organizations behave. Each of these
persons had to resolve three basic questions about his understanding of public
organizations: (1) What knowledge is needed as a basis for action? (2) What are
the best possible sources of that knowledge? (3) How can that knowledge be
applied to the situation at hand? Only after resolving these questions (at least
implicitly) was each person able to act.
Take Ken Welch, the central character in this case, as an example. Among
the many categories that Ken might have used to help him understand what
was happening in this situation, Ken chose to emphasize those relating to
power and authority. His concern (perhaps even obsession) with power and
authority pro-vided a special lens through which he viewed the world, a lens
that highlighted some events and filtered out others. After obtaining a certain
amount of infor-mation, Ken concluded that he was a ‘‘pawn’’ in ‘‘an office
power struggle’’ and tried to work things out by appealing to those who had
authority in the organization. If, on the other hand, Ken had focused on other
topics—for example, the breakdowns in communication that often occur in
complex organizations despite attempts at cooperation—he would have acted
quite dif-ferently, probably trying to discover the cause of the confusion and
seeking to work out a more effective relationship with his fellow workers. In
any case, it is clear that Ken’s own perspective on organizational life, his own
implicit theory of organization, was crucial in directing his actions.

Different Approaches: Case 2

Let us examine another case, one that illustrates again the connection between
the theories people hold and the actions they take, but one that also illustrates

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LEAR N I N GAB O UTPU B LI C O R GAN I ZATIO N S 7

several other themes central to the study of public organizations. John Taylor
and Carol Langley worked for a local community development agency.
Following a rather massive reorganization of the agency, in which a number of
new programs were taken on, John was asked to supervise a new housing-loan
program, and Carol was asked to assist him. The program was designed to
provide low-interest loans to help people rehabilitate housing in certain parts of
the city. Although John and Carol had experience in related areas, neither was
familiar with this particular program. To make matters worse, seminars to
provide help in estab-lishing such programs had been held some months
earlier. John and Carol were simply given a manual and told to begin.
The program involved a number of new activities and took considerable
time to set up. For example, it was necessary to train new housing inspectors,
who would coordinate their activities with those provided by the city, and
relationships had to be established with the many agencies that would provide
information about the applicants being processed.
John soon began receiving considerable pressure to complete the
processing of the first group of applications within a very short time. For one
thing, the first group of applicants consisted of about forty people who had
originally applied for other programs but had been turned down. Since their
applications had been on file in the agency for as long as a year, they were
eager to have their requests processed quickly. Initial visits and phone calls
from several of the applicants made John quite aware of their feelings. In
addition, however, John knew that this particular loan program would have a
significant impact on the community and that, consequently, his doing an
efficient job under these difficult circumstances would be important to the
agency and in turn important to his own future in government service.
Carol recognized the necessity of doing the work as quickly as possible,
but she also felt a special obligation to the applicants themselves. She took
seriously the agency director’s comment that the agency could use this
opportunity to help ‘‘educate’’ the applicants about the procedures involved in
such projects. She felt that it was very important to contact the applicants
periodically to let them know what was happening, for example, with the
inspections, cost estimates, loan amounts, financial information, and terms and
conditions of the loans. Unlike John, who spent most of his time in the office,
she talked frequently with the applicants, many of whom she knew personally
from her previous position in the agency.
For each applicant, John and Carol were to accumulate a complete file of
information about financial status and about the rehabilitation project the
applicant had in mind. This file was to be received and signed by the applicant,
then forwarded to the regional office of the federal Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) for its action on the loan.
John felt that the process could be completed more quickly if Carol would
simply get the applicants to sign a blank set of forms that could be kept at the
office. When information was received regarding a loan, the appropriate items
could be entered on the signed forms, thus saving the time that would be
involved in reviewing each form with the applicant. Also, this procedure would

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8 CHAPTER1

eliminate the often lengthy process of coordinating several office visits to

discuss the material.
When John asked Carol to obtain the signed forms, she refused. She not only
felt that the applicants should see and understand the materials before signing, she
was afraid that it might be illegal to have people sign blank forms. When she
talked with John’s supervisor about the request, she was told that the procedure
was not illegal and had even been used before in the regional office.
John and Carol obviously had different orientations toward the role of public
administration in modern society. Similarly, they had different understandings of
how one might be effective as an administrator. Consequently, when they
encountered this particular situation, they immediately fit the given circumstances
into their administrative frames of reference, and these frameworks became the
bases for their actions. John seemed most concerned with the efficient completion
of the task with which he had been presented, while Carol seemed more concerned
that she be immediately responsive to members of the client group and helping
them to understand the loan process.
As we will see, the issues that seem to separate John and Carol are not
unusual; indeed, they lie at the heart of public administration theory. On the
one hand, government agencies are urged to attain the greatest possible
efficiency in their delivery of services—to cut through red tape whenever
possible. On the other hand, since public agencies should presumably operate
in the public interest, they must be responsive to the needs and desires of those
with whom they work. Moreover, one might argue that public agencies bear a
special responsibility to help educate citizens to deal more effectively with
social prob-lems on their own.

On the one hand, government agencies are urged to attain the greatest possible
efficiency in their delivery of services. On the other hand, they must be responsive to the
needs and desires of those with whom they work.

This case also provides an interesting commentary on another issue that we

will encounter in our study of public organizations: where we stand considerably
influences what we see. Specifically, a person’s actions often look quite different
from the inside than from the outside. We might, for example, characterize John’s
behavior as self-serving, concerned only with impressing those who might
influence his impending promotion; more charitably, however, we might char-
acterize John as highly concerned for the agency’s clients, anxious to help them
receive their loan approvals as quickly as possible in order to ease their financial
difficulties. John himself might describe his actions in either of these ways, or he
might speak of the situation in completely different terms. For example, he might
say that he felt tremendous pressure to get the job done, both from those inside and
those outside the organization; consequently, he experienced this entire situation,
especially the conflict with Carol, as a source of personal anguish.

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LEAR N I N GAB O UTPU B LI C O R GAN I ZATIO N S 9

Although we can rather readily describe the behavior of individuals in organ-

izations, it is much more difficult to assess the meaning that their activities
have for them. Yet in seeking intelligence and compassion in our understanding
of public organizations, both are necessary.

FORMALTHEORIESOFPUBLICORGANIZATION

We mentioned earlier the number of sources from which we derive our under-
standing of public organizations. Regardless of whether we consciously
attempt to develop our perspectives, they do develop, and we are guided by
them. If we wish to sharpen our ability to respond with greater intelligence and
compassion to those situations we face as members or clients of public
organizations, we need to consider more carefully the implicit theories we
hold. One way to do that, of course, is to compare our own implicit theories of
public organization with those more explicit theories developed by theorists
and practitioners in an attempt to better understand the organizational world in
which we live. We can compare formal theories of public organization with our
own perspectives, then make the adjustments or refinements that would enable
us to understand more clearly our own actions and the actions of others.

Why Study Formal Theories?

There are clearly certain advantages to examining formal theories. Although

those who construct such theories entertain essentially the same questions as
others seeking a better understanding of organizational life, they do so with
considerably more care, rigor, and sophistication. Not that they are any brighter
or more perceptive than others—they simply have more time to devote to the
effort. Because formal theories are more carefully developed, they reflect both
a wider range of topics than we might ordinarily consider and an agenda
emphasizing those items that seem most important. For this reason, formal
theories provide a benchmark against which we may measure our own ap-
proaches to organizational life. In seeking to improve our own understanding,
we would be well advised to study the way in which other theorists and
practitioners have attempted to construct their own theories. By doing so, we
get an idea of the range of questions that we should consider, an overview of
the issues that have been debated back and forth (and among which we will
inevitably have to choose), and a sense of where we stand with respect to the
central questions facing those in public organizations.
Of course, theorists differ with respect to what constitutes an appropriate
theoretical base for understanding public organizations; however, at a very broad
level, most agree that the purpose of theory generally is to provide a more coherent
and integrated understanding of our world than we might otherwise hold. Theory
seeks to move beyond a simple observation of facts or a blind adherence to certain
values to provide more general interpretations. It does not simply draw together
facts, it draws from them; it does not simply recognize values, it reorders them. In
this way, theories add a symbolic dimension to our

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10 CHAPTER1

experience. A theory is not simply an arrangement of facts or values but a

thoughtful reconstruction of the way we see ourselves and the world around
us. It is a way of making sense of a situation. Theories may then be evaluated
in terms of their capacity to help us see our world more clearly and to act more
effectively in that world.
As we have already seen, administrative practitioners have to make
choices about the kind of knowledge they need, the ways in which it can be
successfully acquired, and the ways in which it may be applied. Theorists must
do the same— they must ask what kinds of knowledge they wish to produce,
how they can ensure that their results will be complete and accurate, and how
the newly acquired knowledge can be applied. Theorists must make certain
choices about what to study and how to study it. And, once these choices have
been made, theorists and their theories are bound by them.
For this reason, we should maintain some skepticism concerning theories of
public organization (and concerning other theories as well). We must realize that
these theories of public organization, like public organizations themselves, result
from human activity—particular constructions that may be more or less appro-
priate for various purposes. All theories emphasize certain things and de-
emphasize others; they therefore reflect the broader commitments of a given
culture. For this reason, as we consider various theories, we will see life reflected;
but we should realize that this reflection is imperfect, filtered as it is through the
lens of the general culture and the specific choices made by the theorist. Con-
sequently, theories may sometimes conceal reality and at other times project it.

The Role of Models

This fact can be illustrated by a consideration of the roles of models in trans-
mitting knowledge. Public administration theorists often speak of their work as
the task of developing models of organization or models of administration. In
this sense, the term model does not mean an ideal form of organization or type
of administration but rather a representation of real life (in this case, a verbal
rep-resentation). We might, for example, think of organizations as analogous to
the models of molecular structures found in physics, with the balls being
various offices and the connecting rods being lines of authority. In any case,
the models developed by theorists of public organization share some of the
characteristics of models in general.
Consider for a moment a particular model automobile. This model car is
intended to represent a real full-sized car. It has the same general shape as the
larger car; it has bumpers and windows; and it even has wheels that roll. In these
respects, the model car reflects reality rather well. But in one sense, the model car
is drastically different—it has a rubber-band motor instead of a gasoline com-
bustion engine. In this respect, the model car distorts rather than reflects reality.
Yet this distortion was intentional. The model maker wished to illustrate the fact
that the automobile moves along the ground and felt that it was more important to
illustrate this aspect of the full-sized car’s performance than to portray accu-rately
the device by which it is propelled. The resulting model is then both a

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LEAR N I N GAB O UTPU B LI C O R GAN I ZATIO N S 11

reflection and a distortion of reality. For the model to be meaningful to us, we

must recognize which is which.
In investigating theories of public organization, therefore, we should
always seek to be aware of the choices theorists have made in constructing
their theories and the distortions to which these choices may have led. In terms
of language, we should always inquire into what is said, what is left unsaid,
and what should be said next. This last point is particularly important, for, as
earlier discussion showed, theory invites action. Thus, we should ask how
theories express not only who we and our organizations are but also who we
and our organizations might become.

BUILDINGTHEORIESOFPUBLICORGANIZATION

Let us now turn to the choices that theorists have had to make with respect to
building theories of public organization. Specifically, we argue here that these
choices have left our understanding of life in public organizations incomplete; even
so, although a comprehensive and integrated theory of public organization has not
yet been developed, a number of very important themes appropriate to that study
have been explored in great detail. Moreover, the possibility now exists that these
themes can finally be brought together to fulfill the promise of public
administration theory—to help make sense of our involvement with public
organizations and in turn to improve the overall quality of the public service.
Although this argument is developed throughout the book, it is appropriate
at this point to review some of the ways in which the issue of theory building
in public administration has been viewed in the past and to outline some of the
ways in which a more integrated approach might be developed. With respect to
the scope of public administration theory, at least three orientations can be
identified. First, public administration has been viewed as part of the
governmental process and therefore akin to other studies in political science. In
this view, a theory of public organization is simply part of a larger political
theory. Second, public organizations have been viewed as much the same as
private organizations. In this view, a theory of public organization is simply
part of a larger theory of organ-izations. Third, it has been argued that public
administration is a professional field, much like law or medicine, that draws on
various theoretical perspectives to produce practical impacts. In this view, a
theory of public organization is both unattainable and undesirable.

Public Administration and Government

The view that public administration is distinguished by its relationship to the

governmental process was held by many early writers in the field and continues to
attract numerous followers. From this perspective, the public bureaucracy is
recognized not only as being an arm of government but also as playing a sig-
nificant role in the governmental process. Public organizations are said to affect the
development and implementation of public policy in various ways and
consequently to affect the allocation of values in society. If this is the case,

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12 CHAPTER1

however, then such organizations must be subject to the same criteria of eval-
uation as other actors in the political process. Terms such as freedom, equality,
justice, responsiveness, and so on are as appropriately applied to the public
bureaucracy as to the chief executive, the legislature, or the judiciary.
Therefore, according to this view, the body of theory most appropriate to
inform the operations of the bureaucracy is political theory, and the most
important recommendations theorists might make are those that would guide
the formulation and implementation of public policy.
This view of public organizations as central to the political process was
held by many early theorists, especially those from the discipline of political
science. (Curiously, the relationship between the subfields of public
administration and political theory is marked by considerable ambivalence.
Although often seen as the practical and philosophical extremes of the
discipline, public administration and political theory share an important
heritage based on their concern for effective democratic governance.)
Although the roots of public administration in political theory have often been
neglected, usually in favor of more immediate technical concerns, some
theorists have maintained an interest in the political theory of public
organization—an interest that we will later see especially marked in the ‘‘new
public service’’ and in certain aspects of the recent emphasis on public policy.

Public Administration and Private Organizations

In contrast to this position, others have argued that the behavior of individuals
within organizations and the behavior of organizations themselves are much
the same, regardless of the type of organization being studied. This generic
approach to organizational analysis has also attracted many followers and has
indeed created an interdisciplinary study drawing from work in business
administration, public administration, organizational sociology, industrial
psychology, and various other fields. Proponents of this view argue that the
basic concerns of management are the same, whether one is managing a
private corporation or a public agency. That is, in either case, the manager
must deal with issues of power and authority, with issues of communication,
and so forth. If this is the case, we should expect that lessons learned in one
setting would be easily transferable to the other. More important, lessons
learned in either setting would contribute to a general theory of organizations.
For example, research on both the motivation of assembly-line workers in the
automobile industry and on the effects of new incentive patterns in the public
sector would contribute to a more general explanation of employee motivation.
Typically associated with the view that a generic study of administration
should be undertaken is the view that the chief concern of such a study should be
efficiency. In part, this view grows out of the early relationship between science
and business, which clearly emphasized the use of scientific principles to increase
the productivity of the organization. But this concern was soon voiced as well in
the public sector; indeed, in an article often cited as inaugurating the field of public
administration, Woodrow Wilson (1887) argued that such a study might

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LEAR N I N GAB O UTPU B LI C O R GAN I ZATIO N S 13

permit the same gains in efficiency as those being made in the private sector. In
any case, this viewpoint, proposing a generic study of organizations structured
around an interest in making organizations more efficient, remains an important
and perhaps even a dominant one among students of public administration.

Public Administration as a Profession

Finally, there is the view that public administration is best viewed as a profession, like
law or medicine, drawing from many theoretical perspectives. Dwight Waldo, one of
the most revered theorists in public administration (1975, pp. 223–224), was especially
vocal in promoting this viewpoint, drawing an analogy with the field of medicine:
‘‘There is no single, unified theory of illness or health, theories and the technologies
based on them constantly change, there are vast unknowns, there is bitter controversy
over medical questions of vital importance, the element of ‘art’ remains large and
important. ‘Health’ proves, on close scrutiny, to be as undefinable as ‘good
administration.’’’ Yet in spite of the apparent lack of coherence in theory, medical
schools purport to train professionals in the field of medicine and do so by drawing on
the theoretical perspectives of many different disciplines. Similarly, one might argue
that education for careers in public administration should follow a comparable strategy,
with our being concerned less with the dis-ciplinary background of certain ideas and
techniques than with their applicability to problems administrators actually face. Given
that no single discipline can currently provide the kind of knowledge needed by
administrators in the public sector, we might hope that all disciplines would contribute
what they can.
Unfortunately, this view of public administration as a profession, perhaps
even more than the other views presented here, precludes the possibility of a
comprehensive and integrated theory of public organizations as well as the
pos-sibility that the theory will fully match the interests and concerns of
practitioners. To say that public administrators must merely draw from
theoretical perspectives developed within the context of such a traditional
academic discipline as organizational analysis or political science is to say that
public administrators must depend for guidance on theories not directly suited
to their interests. From the standpoint of the administrator, political theory
remains incomplete, for it leaves out essential concerns of management;
similarly, organizational analysis is incomplete, for it leaves out a concern for
democratic responsibility. In any case, the administrator is left with the
theoretical problem of reconciling the two perspectives, a task that even the
most talented theorists have not yet been able to accomplish.

FOCUSINGONCOMPLEXORGANIZATIONS

Before the scope of theories of public organization can be examined further, it is

important to note two other tendencies in public administration theory that have
limited the range of questions entertained by the field. First, most, although
certainly not all, public administration theorists have focused their work primarily

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14 CHAPTER1

on large and complex organizations. Thus, for example, definitions of the term
organization have revolved around features most clearly associated with traditional
bureaucratic structures. Organizations are said to be groups of people brought
together to accomplish some purpose; they are seen as directing the activities of
many individuals so that some particular goal can be achieved. In addition, the
direction of these activities occurs through a series of authority relationships in
which superiors and subordinates interact. Characteristically, in these relation-
ships authority flows primarily from the top down. Bureaucratic organizations are
also defined by their structure, or hierarchy, which results from dividing labor and
clarifying authority relationships (so that each person has only one boss).
Although most definitions of organization developed by persons studying large
and complex organizations involve some combination of these elements, it is possible
to define organization in a more open-ended fashion. For example, Chester Barnard
(1948, p. 73) described an organization as ‘‘a system of consciously co-ordinated
activities or forces of two or more persons.’’ Note that Barnard’s defi-nition not only
expands the range of groups we might consider organizations but also suggests that we
focus on coordinated activities rather than formal mecha-nisms. Although most of the
theories reviewed in this book concentrate on large and complex organizations, the
wide range of public agencies suggests that we remain open to a less restrictive
definition of our subject matter. Moreover, we should be aware that by taking attributes
of large bureaucratic structures as defining characteristics of public organizations, we
may unconsciously commit ourselves to a continuation of such structures. If public
administration practitioners and theorists choose to study only bureaucratic
organizations, they are far less likely to consider alternative modes of organization.
Indeed, they may tend to try to fit other organizations into this model. (As we will see
later, there is a great advantage to being more flexible on this issue.)

Equating Public and Government Administration

Second, most, although again not all, public administration theorists have largely
equated public administration with government administration—that is, with
carrying out the mandates of government. Students of public administration have
concentrated on those agencies formally a part of government: departments,
boards, and commissions at the local, state, and federal levels. Paul Appleby
(1945, Ch. 1) argued that since ‘‘government is different’’ from private enterprise,
public administration is different from business administration. Certainly there are
rea-sons for thinking that the field of public administration can be differentiated
from other, similar fields, but is this simply because it is attached to government?
When those in public agencies are asked what they see as distinctive about their
work, they tend to clearly distinguish their perception of their own work from their
perception of work in private industry. For example, they note that government
agencies are typically more interested in service than in production or profit.
Consequently, they argue that the purposes of government agencies are consid-
erably more ambiguous than those of private industry and are usually stated in
terms of service rather than profit or production. With goals that are more

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LEAR N I N GAB O UTPU B LI C O R GAN I ZATIO N S 15

difficult to measure, they argue, government agencies are inherently limited in

the degree of efficiency they can attain. Moreover, practitioners point out that
the decision-making process in public agencies is pluralistic, and that not only
must agency personnel be attentive to other factors in the environment, but also
their ability to act may be effectively preempted by decisions made elsewhere
in the government system. The requirement that government agencies be
responsive to the interests of the citizenry places obvious, although certainly
proper, restrictions on the decision-making process. Finally, practitioners note
that their actions occur much more in the public eye than those of their
counterparts in industry. As the old saying goes, public administrators live in a
goldfish bowl, their every movement scrutinized by an often critical public.
For many administrators in this country, these opportunities and constraints do
indeed set the world of public administration apart. However, there are signs that
these features are not simply due to the fact that government is involved. One
could certainly argue that less democratic political systems can be more precise in
their objectives, less pluralistic in their decision-making processes, and more
careless about openness or accountability. It is quite possible to conceive of
totalitarian systems in which administrative activities would appear to have none of
these distinguishing characteristics. In addition, many so-called private enterprises
are today being increasingly thrust into the public arena and are finding it
necessary to modify traditional management practices. Many private and quasi-
public organizations are more and more oriented toward service objectives. They
carry out their efforts with increasing concern for the impact of uncertain
environmental factors, and their operations are subjected to careful scrutiny by
both government and the public.
This development suggests not that government and business are becoming
more and more alike (although they may be) but that the degree of democra-
tization to which an organization is committed determines the publicness of its
management processes. Those organizations that are committed to following
an open, public process in the formatting and execution of policy will indeed
encounter the special opportunities and constraints that we associate with
public organizations.

REDEFININGTHEFIELD

We argue here that a theory of public organization may indeed be obtained

through a redefinition of the field. To move beyond the restrictions of past
definitions, an alternative should have the following characteristics: it should
clarify the perspectives of earlier approaches to the field—the political, the
generic, and the professional; it should identify public administration as a
process rather than as something that occurs within a particular type of
structure (hier-archy, for example); and it should emphasize the public nature
of that process rather than its connection to formal systems of government.
Such an alternative will be outlined later; first, a definition of the field will be
developed on which such an alternative can be built.

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16 CHAPTER1

Democratic political theory as typically described is concerned with the way

in which public institutions promote societal values that have been defined and
applied with a high degree of citizen involvement and with a high degree of
responsiveness to the needs and interests of the citizenry. Democratic theory thus
focuses on such issues as freedom, justice, and equality. Theories of organization,
in contrast, are concerned with how individuals can manage change processes to
their own or to corporate advantage, especially in large systems. Such theories
focus on issues of power and authority, leadership and motivation, and the
dynamics of groups in action.
Bringing these two perspectives together, this book will argue that public
administration is concerned with managing change processes in pursuit of pub-
licly defined societal values. Such a definition of the field suggests that public
administration is more than simply the conjunction of several other approaches to
study and practice—that it contains an essential and indeed distinctive coherence
of subject matter. This being the case, our new definition would permit theories of
public administration rather than theories related to public administration. To the
extent that we are able to define our subject matter in a distinctive way, we will be
able to focus on the development of a coherent and integrated theory of public
organization. Moreover, to the extent that our definition corresponds to practice, it
will be of considerably greater relevance to those active in the field than other
theories that have thus far been proposed. Indeed, it will recognize the awkward
complexity that characterizes the work of the public manager.

Public administration is concerned with managing change processes in pursuit of

publicly defined societal values.

This view of the public manager suggests an individual sensitive to the

impact of interpersonal and structural relationships on the development of
stable or changing patterns of organizations—someone able to recognize and
respond to the subtleties of organizational change processes. It also
acknowledges that the public manager stands in a special relationship to the
design and implementation of societal values—a relationship that provides an
ethical basis for public man-agement. ‘‘The manager lives in the nexus of a
political and an administrative world and therefore is neither an independent
actor nor solely an instrument of the political system. In this singular position,
the manager accepts, interprets, and influences the values which guide the
application of skills and knowledge’’ (Denhardt and Nalbandian, 1980).
As we examine various approaches to understanding life in public organ-
izations, our definition of public administration—that is, managing change
processes in pursuit of publicly defined societal values—should become clearer.
However, it is important to recognize that such a definition only permits, but does
not ensure, the development of a comprehensive theory of public organ-ization. To
achieve such a theory and sort out its implications for administrative

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LEAR N I N GAB O UTPU B LI C O R GAN I ZATIO N S 17

practice will require the examination and reconciliation of many diverse view-
points. As such, the development of a theory of public organization constitutes
a major and difficult task not only for theorists but for practitioners as well.

CONCLUSION

With these considerations in mind, we may now turn to some of the forces that
have shaped our understanding of the role of public organizations in modern
society. As we have seen, all of us construct implicit theories that guide our
actions in public organizations. One way to focus our own theories more
clearly and to improve their effectiveness as guides to action is to study more
formal theories of public administration. By doing so, we can test our personal
theories by comparing them with those of others and consider more carefully
how our theories might help us as members or clients of public organizations.

All of us construct implicit theories that guide our actions in public organizations.

The next several chapters examine how theorists and practitioners in public
administration have sought to develop more formal perspectives on public
management. The purpose is not merely to present a historical overview of the
development of public administration theory but rather to examine those ideas
that might be of greatest relevance to the eventual construction of a compre-
hensive and integrated theory of public organization. Although the
contributions of such disciplines as political science and organizational
analysis are noted, attention is focused on the works of those theorists who
have consciously emphasized the study of public organizations and, in doing
so, have formed the basis of the modern study of public administration.
Our discussion begins with a consideration of the broad significance of the
study of public organizations for individuals in modern society. As the discussion
in this chapter has made clear, building a theory of public organization is not
simply a matter of accumulating sets of techniques that can be applied to particular
situations. To speak of the meaningfulness of our experiences or the impact that
those experiences have on the values of society is to begin a much more complex
study—one that suggests that we be attentive not only to empirical questions
related to the management of change in complex systems but also to the larger
social, political, and ethical contexts within which public organizations exist.

REFERENCES

Appleby, Paul. Big Democracy. New York: Knopf, 1945.

Barnard, Chester. The Functions of the Executive. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1948.

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18 CHAPTER1

Denhardt, Robert B., and Nalbandian John. ‘‘Teaching Public Administration as a

Vocation.’’ Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for
Public Administration, 1980.
Waldo, Dwight. The Study of Public Administration. New York: Doubleday, 1955. Waldo,
Dwight. ‘‘Education in the Seventies.’’ In American Public Administration, edited by
Mosher, Frederick C., pp. 181–232. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1975.
Wilson, Woodrow. ‘‘The Study of Administration.’’ Political Science Quarterly ( June 2,
1887): 197–222.

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 ❅

Credits

Pages 27–29, quotations reprinted with permission of Macmillan Publishing

Co., Inc. from The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, by Max
Weber, translated by A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons. Copyright 1947,
renewed 1975 by Talcott Parsons.
Page 30, quotations from The Age of Bureaucracy, by W. J. Mommsen. Copyright
1974 by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Reprinted by permission.
Pages 31–32, quotations from The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis,
by Sigmund Freud. Copyright 1955 by Regnery Gateway, Inc. Reprinted by
permission.
Pages 39–53, scattered quotations from The Administrative State, by Dwight
Waldo. Copyright 1948 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. This and all other quotes
from the same source are reprinted by permission.
Pages 69–70 and 76, scattered quotations from Public Administration, by H. A.
Simon, D. W. Smithburg, and V. A. Thompson. Copyright 1950 by Herbert
Simon, Donald Smithburg, and Victor Thompson. Reprinted by permission.
Pages 134–136, quotations from Intellectual Crisis in American Public Admin-
istration, by Vincent Ostrom. Copyright 1974 by the University of Alabama
Press. Reprinted by permission.
Pages 149–188, a portion of Chapter 7 is adapted from The Political Theory of
Reinvention, by Linda deLeon and Robert B. Denhardt.
Pages 165–167, Toward a Critical Theory of Public Organization, by Robert B.
Denhardt, reprinted with permission from Public Administration Review, 1981
by the American Society for Public Administration, 1225 Connecticut Avenue,
N.W., Washington, D.C. All rights reserved.

211

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