Scope and Theory of Public Administration by Baracskay Daniel;

Author:Baracskay, Daniel;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic

Chapter 5

The Influence of Early Business Administration and Principles of Scientific Management on the Development of American Public Administration

This chapter is largely devoted to the influence of early business principles and scientific management on the development of public administration. More contemporary theories of management will be explored in later chapters in order to fully explore this important source of early interdisciplinary principles. The classical era of management was most influential in public administration history during the late nineteenth-century until approximately the 1930s, at which point subsequent human-centric theories of motivation and leadership came into fruition which consequently affected the nature of management in public sector organizations. This is a vast topic which explores the antecedents of early managerial thought as a source of ideas for public sector organizations, and as also having an expansive effect on the scope and theory of public administration. In effect, there has perhaps been no greater influence on the development of American business, market structure, and advancements in technology than the Industrial Revolution. Beginning in Europe in the 1760s and progressing across the globe, the Industrial Revolution reached American society in the late nineteenth century. Industrialization spanned a series of decades, reflecting a gradual but steady end to frontier life in our nation as populations began aggregating around cities where job opportunities were most abundant. Market philosophies had entered a period of revolution, having progressed from the pre-modern modes of trade and commerce to more complex mechanisms and structures reflective of the role of technology and sophisticated production processes.

The ramifications for public administration were significant, most noticeably in terms of the progression from a weak American state to a positive one where newer agencies and procedures emerged in response to societal demands as a means of addressing the externalities and spillover effects associated with private sector activities. As an ancillary to this, industrialization introduced new practices in the discipline of business administration that were reflective of modernization, as novel techniques became a product of merging managerialism with science to generate a methodical and systematic way of promoting organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Through the process of IDD, scientific management subsequently influenced the study and practice of public sector organizations, which likewise sought to benefit from the introduction of newer techniques on organizational operations. In this chapter, the progression of scientific methods is examined and extended further as a facet of the lower and higher order constructs in public administration, not only in terms of the methodological advancements which were used to study phenomena, but also the techniques and practices that became the basis for managerial principles and theories which represent foundations of organizational life. However, the disparity between public and private sector values was not drawn out until later eras of public administration history, when the field began recasting (to be discussed in chapter 6) to update its foundations from the many inputs that normative and scientific modes of inquiry had provided. As new ideas and content from business and scientific inquiry were adapted to the

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