Foundation of public administration

By; Emmmanuel A Turuka

"politicians and public administrators fulfill different and potential overlapping roles within the U.S system governance. What advantages and disadvantages are there to the lack of “ administration” in the U.S Constitution? What specific Constitution amendments would you suggest to correct this situation? [If none, how would you suggest overcoming the disadvantages?]"

The United States of America is well known around the world as the father of democracy because of the good principles, especially the separation of powers that have been outlined in the Constitution. The genius of the American system of government is that its powers and authority are deliberately divided. This division means that the President (Executive), the Congress (Legislative), and the courts (Judicial) each mathematically can serve as one-third of the American governmental body. This doctrine of separation of powers is a fundamental rule of law deeply embedded in American culture and governmental commitment to equal distribution of power, and makes the U.S. Constitution as a living document. Beckett and Koening  (2005) argues:

The discussions of legal foundations of government commonly begin with the U.S. Constitution because it is the founding document and the supreme law of the land. The constitution establishes the foundation and authority of government and provides the structure and functions of the three primary branches: legislative, executive and judicial. (p. 1)

The clear goal of the Constitution is to have a perfectly balanced scale because, if powers were not shared and checked, a dictator or power monger would control the destiny of the rights and the liberties of citizens.

In modern times, every society has a government and the role of government is to fulfill the need of society. Government is the composition of politicians on one hand and administrators on the other hand. Politicians are elected officials who are selected for a specific time while administrators are appointed by governing boards. The role of administrators is the execution of the law, policy, and chinks. In fulfilling their duties, politicians and administrators fulfill different and potentially overlapping roles, because administrators are committed to politicians’ goals and at the same time engage in interactions with politicians. Box  (2004) argue:

Public service practitioners are often involved in providing information and giving recommendations to policy makers as they formulate a policy, before policy decision is made. However, it was also recognized that the relationship between practitioners and elected officials is an ongoing part of governance in public organizations. (p. 39)

Wilson (1887), in other words, argued that public administration is a detailed systematic execution of public law. Every particular application of general law is an act of administration.

Public administration has not been given a separate article or description in the Federal Constitution. When one reads the constitution Article 1 gives power to the Legislative branch (Congress), Article 2 Gives power to Executive branch (President) and Article 3 gives power to judicial branch (Court).  There is no place where administration has been mentioned in these three major foundation Articles in the U.S. Constitution.

The advantage of a lack of administration in the Constitution is that, in essence, all three government functions have been collapsed to the administration; thus, public administrators make rules, (legislature) implement these rules (Executive) and adjudicate questions concerning their application and execution (Judicial). According to Beckett and Koening (2005),” Public administrators rule every branch of government. The source and structure for public administrators is an essential concern in bureaucratic theory.” (p. 3). Other theories have also argued that public administration should base more on management side rather than the foundation of law.

The disadvantage of the lack of constitutional language about administration affects the importance and legitimacy of public administration practice. Public administration is organized around the professional responsiveness. The basic concept behind responsiveness is that, since the administrative branch is a policy execution center of government, it must be structured to enable function to counteract factions by providing efficiency and effectiveness. This is well illustrated in Max Weber’s ideal type of bureaucracy, which, instead of allowing overlapping in duties Max Weber’s ideal stresses the importance of functional specialization for efficiency by adopting the concept of hierarchy for effective coordination. In this ideal overlapping should be minimized, and not overdone. The same ideas have well explained in Pendleton Act that public administrator should be based on merit rather than political connections.

A second disadvantage is that the source of legal authority for government is hard to identify. Some powers are enumerated, but there is silence as to others. Take the example of the will of the majority generally prevails, but is limited when the exercise of that would also violate individual rights. This often limits what can be done by administration in implementing public policy as the Constitutional rights of states and individuals, must be observed and protected.

            The specific Constitutional amendment I would propose to ensure that public administration is efficient, effective, responsive, and accountable is through the repeal of the 17^th amendment, which talks about how to elect senators. Senators compose one branch of the Constitution (legislative), which makes laws. The changes of the method of electing senators from one whereby they are elected by legislatures of the various states to one in which they are elected by direct popular vote of the people within the state. The logic behind is to transfer more power to popular control away from the state legislature, thereby weakening the power of the state to advance its interest as defined by a majority of its people through the state legislature. The 17^th Amendment removes both a built-in negation of popular sovereignty and a means of advancing state policy that was an inherent part of the original checks and balances under the Constitution. Also, by restoring the election of senators to the methods directed by the founding fathers, the rule of corruption can be weakened and the influence of the states in affecting national policy can be restored to its original stature.

As a conclusion the lack of administration in the Constitution should not be an excuse for causing mismanagement or inefficiency in enhancing the role of administrators in performing their duties. The Constitution is central to the public administration; despite administration having no chance of being in the Constitution, one cannot talk about good public practitioners outside the Constitution. Good public administration means good constitutionalism. Despite being left out, every public administrator who understands not only the importance of the constitution but also, what it means about the politics/administration dichotomy will improve his or her effectiveness. I personally believe that without Public administration the national and its constitutional system might fail to operate effectively. Nalbandian  (1994) pointes that:

Despite the desire of these managers simply to do their job, they cannot escape the fact their role places them on a very prominent stage and ensures continued examination of their roles, responsibilities and values as they continue to serve the needs of elected officials who are operating in an even more challenging environment.

Also as we have seen in the above context the lack of administration in the Constitution has devolved to the public administrators more responsibility along with the three branches of government. Because of this responsibility, selection of public administrators should be done strictly on the basis of merit to avoid litigation. Despite the lack of administration in the Constitution, the separation of politics and administration holds out the hope that public administrators can be held accountable for providing efficiency in government with the same vigor and discipline in policy execution. And if it happens that there is tension between politics and administration during the overlapping process, such a situation can be reconciled where politicians and administrators share an understanding of their roles and their limitations.

Reference:

Box R.C. (2004). Public administration and society: Critical issues in american governance. M.E Sharpe, Inc.

Beckett J., Koenig H.O. (2005). Public administration and law. M.E Sharpe, Inc.

Nalbandian J. (1994). Reflection of a pracademic on the logic of politics and administration.  Public Administration Review 54 (6) 531-536.

Wilson W. (1887) The study of administration. Political Quarterly II (2) 197-222.

What is bone fide Groups.

As John C. Lammers and Dean H. Krikorian (1997) define and explain that, that bona fide groups are characterized by the good faith of their memberships, that is; they are entered into purposefully with reasonable expectations regarding benefits or outcomes of membership. Second, as the common English translation of bona fide suggests, we assume that the groups of concern are actual groups that occur in human society. Finally, we assume that one of the purposes of positing the construct of the bona fide group was to situate group communication in a larger social system.

What are the rationales for studying Bona Fide Groups?

First, Bona fide is self contained models, which is using artificial tasks with zero history groups this is very important in effective research setting, as Poole advocates, offers potential to revitalize the field, if communication scholars preserve their core assumptions, values, and uniqueness. Small group communication researchers can build active lines of research, contribute to a larger body of knowledge, and maintain momentum through forging alliances with scholars from other disciplines. The real issue in revitalizing is how to develop mindsets for introducing new ways of thinking about small group communication.

Second ttrough bona fide small groups’ communications bring up cohesion, conformity and identity, which involve making decision socialization of new members. And third to improve the ecological of our findings this involves group analysis the tendency to explain groups from observations independent of their context. Bona fide group studies would increase the ecological validity of groups studied by avoiding making observations independent of their context. They also suggested that: research on bona fide groups can lead to reframing traditional group concepts such as roles, norms, brainstorming, phases and cohesiveness

Discussion of the Potential of using Bona Fide Groups when testing theory

As Putnam and Stohl 1994 argued that Individuals within a group are naturally part of several groups. A bona fide group perspective posits that the boundary of a group is not a "given." Went further and explain that each group socially constructs or negotiates its borders in developing its identity. Scholars examine how group members conceive of themselves as a group, build group identity, establish the group's essential features, and shape its external influences based on following features:

• Groups Have Permeable and Fluid Boundaries
• Group Members Maintain Multiple Group Memberships
• Group Members Play Representative Roles
• New Members Shift Role Functions
• The Degree To Which Members Enact A Sense of Belongingness
• Interdependence With Context
• Individuals Communicate With People Across Groups
• Groups Within The Organizations Often Must Coordinate Actions
• Group Members Often Must Negotiate Jurisdiction and Autonomy.
• Making Sense of Existing Intergroup Relations

In research methodology class we have been taught that theories must be falsifiable. In order for a theory to be held tentatively and have an empirical basis, Popper argued that it must be subject to falsification and it must be able to be subjected to meaningful tests: theory makes scientific predictions which can be tested in the natural world, and thus qualifies the young earth hypothesis as a falsifiable and testable scientific theory.
The way that a scientific theory makes predictions is by looking at the mechanism inherent within the theory and asking what sort of results would be expected where that mechanism has been at work. From our observations theories relies more on its suitability of being operationalized and the possibility which can lead to predictions

Just as Johne Donne stated that “No man is an island, entire of itself” bona fide group theory also recognizes that no group is without its context, to observe the group’s interdependence with its context. For example when students are assigned for a project paper; the first is that individuals communicate with people across groups. The group in the communication class not only belongs to several different groups but communicates with those groups. Roommates will share information about what happened at a group meeting. Family members may ask one group member to discuss their project over the holidays. What the theory suggests is that the more conversation that is occurring, the greater dependence of the group on its environment. Observations of external conversations serve as evidence of this dependence and prediction which is basis of bona fide groups.

The second as Putnam and Stohl 1994 indicated that groups are interdependent with their context is that groups must often coordinate actions. Group members also negotiate jurisdiction and autonomy; would extend their idea of research to conducting research of their own, since the course hadn’t trained them on methods. In the case of above Project assignment; the conversation continues with the group working out where their jurisdiction lies and maintaining some sense of autonomy now that the Professor is involved. Hence Professor as a leader serves as boundary spanners to filter information from external constituencies into a group and gatekeeper the release of information outside the group.

The bona fide groups makes predictions is by looking at the mechanism inherent within the eight features on the previous pages and from there you can ask what sort of results would be expected where the group has been at work. From our observations about how intelligent the groups operate when designing fro zero history, we can understand that intelligent designers act in specific ways that can lead to predictions that is the essence of theory. Therefore Bona fide theory prediction is a result of evaluation of issue at hand on a case-by-case scenario. When members meet, share intelligent design theory, through group hypothesis, by looking on stability, permeability, connectivity, overlapping memberships, relations among members in other contexts, and fluctuations in membership. In fulfilling the predictions it also looks on context  which looks how the group operates; bona fide operations more or less depends on  multiple levels of operation, tight or loose coupling, task jurisdiction, temporal control, resource dependency, and competing internal and external authority systems.

Therefore the best theory is the one that is most consistent with observable empirical phenomenon, this means that it can be generalized to other setting, rationalized, explained and mastered. We can conclude this statement by arguing that a theory is like the automobile. Components of it can be changed or improved upon, without changing the overall truth of the theory as a whole. Thus this is the most potential of Bona Fide Groups because the predictions and findings can be used for another group research problem

Conclusion:

The members share a team membership in the way that assembly line workers share group membership. The bona fide group perspective is the distinctions we have frequently made between cross-functional groups, decision-making groups, and task groups. The widespread occurrence of cross functional work groups in modern organizations speaks to the instability of those organizations and changes in the division of labor resulting from new technologies, competition, the search for efficiencies, downsizing, and other new problems faced by the organization. But the task group still remains as a fundamental building block of modern organization. Over time, even cross-functional teams will develop norms at the group, organizational, and institutional levels. It would appear that the bona fide group perspective has utility for the study of groups at multiple levels of analysis, although the construct needs further operationalization. In conclusion, we find the bona fide group construct as very worthy theory which can be used in another settings with similar problem.

Emmanuel A. Turuka

WHY BRAIN DRAIN A MAJOR PROBLEM IN TANZANIA?

Indeed, in any country of Africa like Tanzania, human capital is much more valuable than financial capital because it is only a nation’s human capital that can be converted into real wealth.  Under the status quo, United Republic of Tanzania would still remain poor even if donors and good Samaritans would send all the money available from different sources there, without improving the internal operation system.  It is true that when money is given to doctor or physician the money or assistance helps to convert it into health or rather wealth.  Money cannot teach our children, but teachers can.  Money cannot bring electricity to our homes, but engineers can.  Money cannot cure sick people, doctors can. From this analysis money goes hand in hand with personnel development. The crisis of personnel is the crisis of lack of implementation in government policies.

In this regard when the medical doctors immigrate to the United States, or other developed countries the poor people from poor countries like Tanzania are forced to seek medical treatment from traditional healers while the elite fly to London or New York for their routine medical checkups.

Given the unwillingness or inability of URT leaders to practice good governance, young people who possess the talent and qualities to become visionary, dedicated, and competent employees such as doctors hardly ever get a fair chance to compete for and attain top professional position. Therefore improving quality of health care and maintaining the personnel crisis requires measuring accurately by looking the link between government health policy and retention policies which will provide better job opportunities and find a better work life balance that will help to stop the developed world a system of poaching the best and brightest personnel from the developing world. As I have measured along the discussion this trading of brain drain is a prejudice, and it limits third world countries their chances to develop quickly when we believe that human capital is considered to be a central importance part of development
Emmanuel A .Turuka

IMPACT OF CEO ON PROFITABILITY:

·         Vision:  The ability to influence change in the organizations toward future goals. In this respect CEO runs the strategy making system in the company; and has unique authority and information, and no other members of the company can take responsibility for these decisions. Decisions related to crises, problems and major opportunities must be overseen and integrated by the CEO.

·         Control of Resources:  CEO is the one who controls the resources and make sure that he/she has control of what to produce with these resources.  CEO’s have control of the direction of the firm. This means that the CEO designs the organization, in effect deciding who will do what, and authorizes all important decisions. No major action can be taken without CEO approval; CEO’s influence over resources allocation and utilization may have a great impact on the outcome-which could be negative if misallocated or positive if well allocated. 

·         Inspire Risk: Risk is always there; it can come from both known and unknown factors. It is impossible to bring risk to zero because of the unknown factors, by definition, can never all be know, i.e. you can never prove that risk does not exists just like you cannot prove any negative. It is the responsibility of the CEO’s to influence the types of operations and jobs that it will peruse regardless of risk. The CEO has the ability to look the possibilities of making some difficult decision about unprogramed decision where others they cannot. This can be done by using problem solving skills and confidence about risk taking so as to continue re-inventing for the company. In doing so CEO also builds capability of maintaining an innovative culture that drives the company’s growth.

·         Morale:  CEO’s can influence the motivational level and create a high job loyalty.  This will influence efficiencies in production levels.

·         Academia: Weiner, N., Mahoney, T.A (1981)  “ A study of 193 companies across 19 years, showed that leadership accounted for about 44% of the variance in profits and 47% in stock price.” 

·         Reputation: Cooperate reputation is a more important measure of success, but the CEO’s behavior can affect the image of the company and profitability. It plays a significant role in determining how potential customers respond to the company and likewise it maintains confidence in the company because it focuses on good financial performance. Bad CEO’s reputation can result in a series of cooperate scandals like what happened to Enron and Tyco. The CEO must be a positive role model

·         Soft Skills:  The ability to interact and communicate ideas.  Can influence the ability to raise capital for growth and other activities that are detrimental to the company.

·         Power:  The ability to influence other people around him (not just employees) to buy into his concept. What the CEO does is to create a climate where power and responsibilities are entrusted to intelligent and more enthusiastic people yet still keep a close eye on the financial detail.

Substitutes and Neutralizers:  Identifies contingencies that either limits the leader’s ability to influence subordinate or make that leadership style unnecessary and make it impossible for leader behavior to make any difference to follower outcome.

 

·         Economy:  The effect that the economy can have neutralizes that of the cooperation. For instance, the risk of collapse of dollar, raising interest rate, increases the energy prices (gas) etc these may have a negative impacts in the organization despite the fact that the CEO has laid good strategies for company growth but since he/she has no control over them it makes impossible for CEO credibility to have positive impact in profitability.

·         Motivation:  High motivation of employees by rewards can make leadership functionally unnecessary. This is more applicable on task oriented or people oriented leadership when performance based reward systems keep employees towards organizational goals, therefore reduce the need of leadership or when employees are skilled and experienced leadership is unnecessary.

·         Adverse Events:  Unexpected disasters that CEO’s have no control of events in the environment, such as terrorism (September, 11), hurricanes, earthquakes (natural disaster)

Recommendation:

            CEO’s do have an impact on the firm’s profitability and productivity.  It leads back to the vision of the CEO and the people that he/she surrounds.  The type of direction, the power that the CEO has and implement can affect the direction of the firm whether it makes profit or loses. As we can see in several cases for example Enron that the actions of the CEO lead the company to become corrupt and destroyed the company reputation. 

            Most factors that have impact on profitability can be traced back to the CEO and the leadership of the company, because: CEO’s needed to have integrity, vision and act as a positive role model. They must also understand that returns need to exceed their cost of capital. Successfully CEO’s identify trends in demand well ahead of their competitors,

            The vision that the leaders have impacts the way that business is performed.  They also influence the type of change that can take place in the organization.  CEO has the control of the resources and makes the decisions on what to manufacture.  This can have devastating effects on a company especially if the CEO is still clinging to core rigidity. For example, the typewriter CEO did not have the vision of the changing environment and has to make a decision of producing or finding a new inventive product.

            The decision has to be made by one person.  When you have a group of people you may not be making the best decision for the company because it is an agreed upon decision. There needs to be someone to point a finger at when things go wrong or when things go right.  No one ever wants to take the blame if something goes wrong.  The one point of contact and directions has to come for the CEO. 

Emmanuel A. Turuka

Reference:

Weiner, N., Mahoney, T.A (1981). A model of corporate performance as a function of environmental, and leadership influence. Academic of Management Journal 24 (3) 453-470 

WHY WE LEARN CULTURE

I believe that culture determines what is right or wrong. Conflicts of culture can occur when the beliefs and habits of one cultural group come to dominate the norms of the other groups, making it difficult for members of other groups to be included, understood, and to attain success. We are living in one of the most diverse country in the world, the United States of America. Globalization, immigration, and demographic diversity now present many challenges in the realm of communication and understanding across cultures in the United States. I propose that one role in the field of psychology is to promote an understanding of multicultural by looking cross cultural settings and to serve in an educative role.

Historically, we are aware that our founding fathers of the United States defined America by its core values. They claimed equality, human rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as America's core values. This definition of America was targeted as an asset to comfort people from various cultural heritages and give them the ability to value one's own cultural commitments and to be comfortable with those who do not share those convictions and practices. This ease with cultural difference is a mark of the profound maturity that allows one to be fully committed to a way of life without prejudice against another group.                

Through the multicultural education, we need to ignore and find a way to discard the myth that White Americans enjoy more power and higher status than other ethnic groups,  hence are the ones who owning the nation, whereas ethnic minorities sit at the margin of American society. Let us fight more for American culture which places strong emphasis on choice. Let us fight more of an American culture where people value their freedom to choose and care about what they choose. The 2008 American presidential election has shown the way- that there is nothing impossible in America.

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Once predicted, “ I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."  Let us fight more for this picture of America
Emmanuel A Turuka