Question

why are there numerous problem involved in defining public administration

Answer 1

Answer:

Sources and Nature of Problem:

It is not at all an easy task to locate the sources of problem faced by admin­istration: But some of the problems may be noted. Richard C. Box in his article Running Government like a Business. Implication for Public Administration. Theory and Practice says. “Increasingly, public administration practitioners and academicians are faced with demands from politicians and citizens that government should be operated like a business. By this they mean it should be cost efficient”.

An important aspect of public administration of any modern state is it is not properly and efficiently managed. Huge amount of money is spent behind the running of public administration but the ultimate result does not satisfy the demands of people or it is not cost efficient at all In other words, the cost of a state-sponsored project far surpasses the benefit it produces. It is very commonly found in almost all states, specifically in the developing nations. On the other hand, in a private management—the cost- benefit calculation is strictly adhered to.

Answer 2

Answer:

Public administration is the implementation of government policy and also an academic discipline that studies this implementation and prepares civil employees for working in the public service. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" whose fundamental goal is to "advance management and policies so that government can function." Some of the various definitions which have been offered for the term are: "the management of public programs"; the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day"; and "the study of government decision making, the analysis of the policies themselves, the various inputs that have produced them, and the inputs necessary to produce alternative policies." Public administration is "centrally concerned with the organization of government policies and programs as well as the behavior of officials (usually non-elected) formally responsible for their conduct". Many non-elected public employees can be considered to be public administrators, including heads of city, county, regional, state and federal departments such as municipal budget directors, human resources (HR) administrators, city managers, census managers, state mental health directors, and cabinet secretaries. Public administrators are public employees working in public departments and agencies, at all levels of government.

In the United States, civil employees and academics such as Woodrow Wilson promoted civil service reform in the 1880s, moving public administration into academia. However, "until the mid-20th century and the dissemination of the German sociologist Max Weber's theory of bureaucracy" there was not "much interest in a theory of public administration". The field is multidisciplinary in character; one of the various proposals for public administration's sub-fields sets out six pillars, including human resources, organizational theory, policy analysis, statistics, budgeting, and ethics.