Scope of Public Administration

The scope is a logical corollary of the meaning or definition of Public Administration. Since the meaning of Public Administration is not well defined the scope is also not well defined.

Scope means what is all included in Public administration and what is all excluded in public administration.

According to Dwight Waldo ” Scope of Public administration is based on the government in action “. Since the government in action is evolving the scope is also evolving according to Dwight Waldo.

The scope of Public administration is boundary-less so substantive efforts were made to delineate and outline the scope of Public Administration. Scholars like Willoughby, McQueen, Pfiffner, and Walker defined the scope of Public Administration in different ways.

Willoughby

Willoughby in his book ” Principles of Administration “ said the scope of administration included the study of 5 major aspects of an organization

1. Overhead Administration
   • Managerial Functions
   • Tools and Techniques
   • POSDCoRB
2. Organization
   • The structure of the organization such as hierarchy, a span of control
3. Material and Supply
   • Building
   • Procurement
4. Personnel Management
   • Recruitment, selection, and transfer
   • Promotion and Posting
5. Finance
   • Accounting, auditing, and Budgeting

McQueen

• Scope of Public administration includes the study of 3Ms – Men, Material and Methods

John Pfiffner

• The scope of Public administration is within two major heads – Principles and Spheres
• Principles
  • Tools, techniques and concepts of administration like
    • Organisation
    • Personnel Management
    • Method and procedure
    • Material and Supply
    • Public Finance
    • Administrative responsibility
• Spheres
  • Various levels of Organisation
    • Central
    • State
    • Local
    • Public corporations …etc

Walker

• He divided the scope of public administration into two heads
  1. Administrative Theory
     1. Discipline or Study of Public Administration
     2. It includes concepts, theories, and verified generalizations relating to structure, organization, functions, and methods
     3. Includes all types of public authorities
  2. Applied administration
     1. Activity or practice of Public Administration
     2. Includes study of the specific administrative system and their problems
     3. Includes hospital administration, public health administration, educational administration, revenue administration, financial administration…etc
• It is one of the well-defined scopes of Administration
• In addition to individual contributions, many schools of thought tried to outline the scope of Public Administration.

Schools of thought in outlining the scope of Public Administration

Broad and Narrow View

1. Narrow View
   1. The scope of Public Administration is limited to the executive branch of the government or action part of the government or visible part of the government
   2. Scholars
      1. Simon
      2. Wilson
      3. Smithsburg
      4. Thompson
2. Broad View
   1. The scope of Public Administration covers all three organs of the state i.e executive, legislative, judiciary, and their interdependence.
   2. Scholars
      1. L.D.White
      2. Dimock
      3. John Pfiffner

Managerial and Integral View

1. The managerial view believes in the scope of Public Administration should emphasize in managerial functions like planning, control, budgeting….etc
   1. Scholars
      1. Herbert Simon
      2. Smithsburg
      3. Thompson
      4. Luther Gullick
      5. Cyert
      6. March
2. The integral view believes in the scope of Public administration should include 4 functions of an organization – technical, clerical, manual activities and managerial functions not only managerial functions
   1. Scholars
      1. Henry Fayol
      2. Leonard D. White
      3. Pfiffner
      4. Wilson
      5. Willoughby

Process and Subject Matter Views

1. Process view is similar to managerial view focused only on managerial functions like POSDCorB
2. The subject matter view challenged this to include subject matter as the most important function to be studied in addition to managerial function. For instance, they said Public Administration should focus on service delivery, the very reason for their existence and Public Administration should study public policy expanding the scope to the extent, Public administration now included every other discipline. For example, Public administration already included managerial principles from management and public policy from political science, now after ” subject matter view ” health administration will study human physiology, financial administration will study the economy, and so on.

Therefore the boundary of Public administration was blurred and created an identity crisis. So critics concluded Public administration is not fit to be considered as a separate discipline.

So, Frederickson and Dwight Waldo observed ” The polyglot nature is not restricted to Public Administration. It is the characteristic of all disciplines. Public administration despite its polyglot nature has a staple core – government in action – and derives its identity from its staple core. The periphery of Public Administration may vacillate but the core provides the stability “

Dwight Waldo even remarked that Public Administration is enriched because of its polyglot nature. In due course, the subject-matter view became the most accepted view among other schools of thought

Contemporary View

Many contemporary scholars attempted to outline the scope of Public Administration.

1. Stephen K. Bailey defined the scope of Public Administration in four dimensions

2. Dwight Waldo also suggested the scope of Public administration should include both facts (descriptive and assumptive) and values(normative)
3. Ridley suggested that the scope of Public administration should include
   1. What all are studied under Public Administration
   2. Who all are studies in Public Administration
   3. Who all are concerned with the study of Public administration – Academia, Practitioners and citizens.