In the Stone Age society, people stayed much the same for thousands of years, in the middle age, for a few hundred years, in the industrial revolution for ten or twenty years. But today, it is seen significant changes in our society brought about by technological advancement, social alternations, economic influences and political pressures. Since change is inevitable, change may assume a variety of forms, each with its unique problems. The new organizations of post-industrial society will be temporary which will emerged adoptive, rapidly changing, ad-hoc structure manned by members of techno-structure who owe allegiance not to the company but to the professional association. We find mob-centric managers who is in tune with high mobility between organizations to organizations. Change itself is a fact of life but it may be difficult to or edict its direction and intensity (depth) besides, there are too many forces at work to enable us to make prediction that the major changes going on in our society and then attempt to interpret with the knowledge that this is surely a many endeavor.
Trends and Their Implications of Public Administration
Technological: Police and measles vaccines, capability to place men on the moon. Mass use of xerographic reproductions printing. Introduction of fifth and sixth generation computers.
Social: Mass acceptance of “Pills” unprecedented-growth of higher education enrollments, social consciousness declining death rate.
Economic: Dramatic rise in the average people’s living-standard, rapid expansion of cheque-less society (i.e. credit card), price rise, rise in interest rates.
Political: Medicare for the aged, end of the military draft, equal right amendment, civil right law or human right.
These changed however reflect only the past, our concern is with the future, therefore let use and extend some current trends to predict some changes that are likely to accrue within the next decade.
1. Shortage of work resources
Although we have always known that the world’s resources do not exist infinite supply, many fold increases in the price of products such as sugar, paper and particularly petroleum have created shock waves through the entire society. Where resources exist in unlimited supply, administration is not necessary. We are therefore recognizing that the 1990 and 2000 AD is characterized by shortage of resources, that will emphasize new direction to administration.
2. Expansion of government activities
During the past decade, government has been the fastest growing sector in the economy such as influence on banking and financing, marketing, international trade through imposition of quotas and restriction and extension of legislation in areas of transportation, housing welfare, medical services and human rights. All these indicates the type of action the government can expect to take in future.
3. Nature of work force
The work force is changing with the rapid increase in the percentage of women and minorities. Origination are having to modify training and promotion policies, as well as make child care and elder care available in order to respond to the needs of two career couples, on the other, a significant portion of new educated workforce entrants do not have marketable skills. They cannot adequately perform the basic reading, writing and computational skill that organization require. This in forcing organization to introduce training program to upgrade the skill.
4. Rising education level
We can remember the time when high school diploma signified significant educational achievement. While a BA degree sufficed to put its holder in the rank of education elite. In those years, most college professors at most universities had only acquired Master’s Degrees. But today college and university require PhD. for most of their new faculty. Not only that, today even street sanitation workers were imparted certain instruction or teaching them how to use heavy and complex equipment as well as developing other skills and knowledge. Educational growth led professionalism, specialization, interdependence, mobility affluence and leisure etc.
5. Social awareness
Attention was particularly directed at our most visible organization to improve quality of products and services, reduce or maintain prices, eliminate discrimination, otherwise all the organization will subject to the watchful eye of consumers and government. The profit sector will continue to be under the closest scrutiny.
6. Changing views of women’s role in the society
The stereotypes image of women as passive, unambitious, low in achievement need, non-competitive and whose primary function are those of wife and mother is rapidly disintegrating. Women are increasingly seeking freedom and financial independence, whether they marry or not.
7. Challenge to the ‘Efficiency’ Value system
Administrators are evaluated on whether they are effective and efficient in caring out their mission. These criteria is for determining good or bad practitioners of administration without much criticism. But today, they are commended for good performance and criticized for bad performance.
8. Declining trust in organizational spokesmen
Much of the population has become discouraged by the difficulty of obtaining open and truthful comments from organizational spokesmen, and this has destroyed much of the public trust.
The third major new trend in public administration as the prediction of Bennis Warren, Fredrick Thayer, however do agree on one thing - that government needs an alternative to Max Weber’s model of the efficient public institution, contains a few tentative propositions about the shape of organization in the future to come.
9. World politics
| Weber's Bureaucratic Organization | Post Bureaucratic Organization |
| 1. Fixed authority and official jurisdiction 2. Written formal rules 3. Impersonality 4. A hierarchy of office 5. Specialization 6. Career service 7. Permanence 8. Secrecy | 1. Authority flows to the person with the ability to solve the problem 2. A dialectical organization which adapts itself to the situation at hand. 3. The client as peer 4. A flat organizational structure, non hierarchy with nobody in change 5. Team problem solving and collective decisions 6. Professional mobility 7. A temporary organization 8. Open communication |
As the challenge taking place in every sphere of life in the globe, politics is not immune for it. A few examples make the point, in the late 1890s and the early 1990s, the fall of the Berlin wall, the reunification of Germany; Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait; the declaration of sovereignty by a number of Soviet Union’s Republics; and Israeli and Palestinian representatives negotiating in Middle East talk.
10. New challenge new organization
Drug abuse has become a worldwide problem. Now the concern lies in the control as well as the rehabilitation of the abusers. Racial discrimination still persist even in so-called advance nation. Other pathologies particularly ethnic discrimination, poverty, war, terrorism and environmental problems (air, water, soil, sound pollution) including the rapid rate of urbanization. On the other new techniques of management as well as more sophisticated tools like computer have created a wide impact on the structure and function of administration to cope with all these problems. Administration has to think twice or thrice before it takes any short of decisions.
11. Competition
The last area we want to discuss is the challenges that derived from increased competition. The global economy means that competitors are like to come from any part of the country to any part of other country. Economic Liberalization and formation of free trade zone.
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