Not only does the productive capacity of these organizations suffer but so, too, does morale. With declining funding, public sector organizations also often have difficult recruiting top talent into their organizations. Another issue that arises with public organization decline is that there is a lack of motivation and a lack of innovation. Innovation in particular is a challenge. When considering Sayre's Model it is not hard to see how excessive bureaucracy can stifle the innovative capabilities of public organizations. Pathak (2007) argues that middle management needs to take a lead role in not only keeping up morale, but encouraging high levels of performance in public organizations as a policy to stem decline.

Cutbacks can be particularly challenging for public organizations. The most important aspect of cutbacks is that management needs to focus the organization on moving forward -- looking back at how things used to be does nobody any good. Cutback management is also more effective when management takes the opportunity to rethink its processes and functions, and make the organization more efficient. If all the manager does is dump the work of a laid-off person onto a survivor's desk, this opportunity is lost, productivity will decline and morale will plummet. Managers must make a full transition to the new operating environment and ensure that their teams are on board as well.

4.

Total quality management (TQM) gained prominence at Toyota in the 1950s and has since been applied to companies around the world, most famously Motorola. The approach requires a commitment to quality in all aspects of the company's operations, and processes should be free from defects (Padhi, 2010). There are eight key elements of total quality management -- ethics, integrity, trust, training, teamwork, leadership, recognition, communication.

A house analogy is used to describe how those eight different elements go into TQM. The foundations of the TQM strategy are ethics, integrity and trust....

Without these, nothing else the organization does will work. The building bricks are training, teamwork and leadership. These different elements are the fundamental skills that allow an organization to meet its commitments under total quality management. The mortar is communication. The role that communication plays in TQM is that it allows for free flow of information. It is this information flow that allows key decision-makers to make more effective decisions. Especially when combined with honesty and trust, communication is essential to identifying issues and addressing the quickly. The final component of TQM is the roof of the metaphorical house -- recognition. When people working in the company succeed, they should be recognized. This recognition is a form of intrinsic motivation, and to ensure that high standards are not only maintained but exceeded some intrinsic motivation can be a valuable tool. Public organizations that adopt TQM practices are more likely to excel and outperform those organizations that do not. TQM can stem the flow of public organization decline.
Works Cited:

McCarthy, R. & Aronson, J. (2001). Analyzing the balance between consumer, business and government: The emergent Internet privacy legal framework. IACIS 2001. Retrieved November 19, 2012 from http://iacis.org/iis/2001/mccarthy275.PDF

Padhi, N. (2010). The eight elements of TQM. iSixSigma.com. Retrieved November 19, 2012 from http://www.isixsigma.com/methodology/total-quality-management-tqm/eight-elements-tqm/

Pathak, P. (2007). The decline of public sector organizations: Can middle managers play the role of saviour? Indian School of Mines. Retrieved November 19, 2012 from http://www.ediindia.org/Creed/data/Govind%20Swaroop%20Pathak%20&%20Pallavi%20Pathak.htm

Sheppard, G. (2009). Public sector reward: More than motivation. Personnel Today. Retrieved November 19, 2012 from http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/06/07/2009/51319/public-sector-reward-more-than-motivation.htm