This paper examines the evolution of public personnel administration in comparison to private personnel administration, tracing the field from classical management theory through behavioralism, systems theory, and contingency theory. It analyzes the four core functions of public personnel management — planning, acquisition, development, and sanction — alongside the competing values and personnel systems that shape public employment. The paper also reviews the contributions of key theorists, including William Fielding Ogburn's culture lag theory, Niccolò Machiavelli's political philosophy of adaptive leadership, and Karl Marx's class struggle framework, assessing how each has influenced contemporary thinking in public administration.
Theories of public personnel administration as compared with private personnel administration have emerged in recent decades as a result of trends in business management. Public administration is directly dependent on the social system as well as the system of production prevalent in society, and it is an important element of all administrative systems. Changes in the system of production and in the patterns of international relations have contributed to the current state of public personnel administration. Furthermore, theorists of the past — such as Ogburn, Machiavelli, and Marx — have offered significant contributions to our current understanding of public administration.
The practice of public personnel administration has evolved along a continuum from classical management theory, through shifting emphases on behavioralism, systems theory, and contingency theory (Haque & Ahmed, 1992). Past research and theorists have suggested that the development of modern management thought and practice can be traced by examining the evolution of societies as they passed from pre-industrial economic structures. This development applies to public personnel administration as well, as there appears to be a correlation between a complex system of production and the progress of administrative techniques (Haque & Ahmed, 1992).
Public personnel administration began as a spontaneous process, with hardly any historic trace of planning. Some semblance of planning became noticeable with the advent of systematic agricultural activities. It subsequently developed in phases along with the transformation of feudal society. These phases are categorized as pre-industrial societies, in which the practice of management was consistent with the simple system of production. Later, the erosion of feudal society, the development of industrial society, the industrial revolution, and the capitalist mode of production led to new issues and problems in the field of administration (Haque & Ahmed, 1992). The history of modern administration and management theories is related to these developments.
Private enterprises offered employment to a larger number of citizens, but this began to change toward the end of the nineteenth century. Discontent against the spoils system became increasingly evident, and demands were voiced for entry into the public service based on democratic principles (Haque & Ahmed, 1992). Contributing to such demands was the increasing rate of unemployment and the need to make American administration more dynamic by recruiting efficient public personnel on the basis of merit and open competition. The organization of public personnel administration had to depend primarily on private personnel administration. Literature on recruitment, selection, promotion, training, transfer, compensation, separation, and other such concepts was borrowed from personnel administration as practiced in private organizations (Haque & Ahmed, 1992).
Public personnel management has been studied extensively from several different perspectives: (1) the functions needed to manage human resources in public agencies, (2) the process by which public jobs are allocated, (3) the interaction among fundamental societal values that often conflict over who gets public jobs and how they are allocated, and (4) the systems — the laws, rules, organizations, and procedures — used to express these abstract values in fulfilling personnel functions (Klingner, 1998). Researchers have described public personnel management in the United States as a dynamic equilibrium among competing values for allocating public jobs in a complex and changing environment.
Public personnel management consists of four fundamental functions needed to manage human resources in public organizations: planning, acquisition, development, and sanction. Planning includes budget preparation, human resource forecasting, dividing tasks among employees, and pay and benefits. Acquisition refers to the recruitment and selection of employees. Development involves orienting, training, motivating, and evaluating employees to increase their knowledge, skills, and abilities. Sanction involves establishing and maintaining the rights and responsibilities that the employer and employee have toward one another, including discipline, grievances, health, and safety.
In public personnel management, values are articulated through personnel systems — the laws, policies, rules, regulations, and practices through which personnel functions are fulfilled. The four basic systems in traditional public personnel management are patronage, civil service, collective bargaining, and affirmative action. Patronage systems are characterized by legislative or executive approval of individual hiring decisions, particularly for policy-making or confidential positions. Appointees serve at the will of those who appoint them, and successful job performance depends on political or personal loyalty.
The rise of anti-government values led to new market-based personnel systems — or private personnel administration — in which the role of government and the number of public employees is reduced by using alternative organizations or mechanisms for providing public services (Klingner, 1998). Purchase-of-service agreements with other governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations enable cities and counties with excess capacity to offer services within a given geographic area, utilizing economies of scale (Klingner, 1998). They offer smaller municipalities a way to reduce capital costs, personnel costs, political issues associated with collective bargaining, and legal liability risks (Klingner, 1998). While service purchase agreements contract for the delivery of a particular service to a public agency, privatization abolishes the entire agency, replaces it with an outside contractor, and offers all the advantages of service purchase agreements while holding down labor and construction costs on a larger scale (Klingner, 1998).
Subsidy arrangements enable businesses to perform public services, funded by either user fees paid by clients or cost reimbursement from public agencies. Examples include airport security provided by private contractors and paid for by both passengers and airlines, emergency medical services provided by private hospitals and reimbursed by public health systems, and rent subsidies in private apartments for low-income residents as an alternative to public housing projects (Klingner, 1998). Regulatory and tax incentives are typically used to encourage the private sector to perform functions that might otherwise be performed by public agencies (Klingner, 1998). For example, zoning variances for roads, parking, and waste disposal are often granted to condominium associations. In return, the association provides services normally performed by local government, such as security, waste disposal, and maintenance of common areas (Klingner, 1998).
"Effectiveness vs. efficiency across organizational types"
American sociologist William Fielding Ogburn developed social theories that helped explain the enormous changes that societies undergo when new technologies are introduced. During his lifetime, technology in the hands of industrialists had transformed America from a rural nation into one of large cities, large organizations, enormous social transformation, great riches, and extensive poverty. Ogburn's theory of "culture lag" sought to understand the role of government in helping to facilitate societal adaptation to the Industrial Revolution (Ogburn, 1936). In Technology and Government Change, Ogburn concluded that a useful way to understand the role of government in industrial society is to examine how it has necessarily evolved to deal with problems that were once largely resolved within the context of extended families during the agricultural era (Ogburn, 1936).
During the American agricultural era, education, employment, health care, and the provision of food and clothing were managed within the family. With the growth of industrial technology, families were no longer able to satisfy individuals' needs for education, health care, employment, transportation, security, or sanitation. Ogburn's theory was that a new form of government was needed to provide what families once provided — made necessary by new technologies that had created social transformations requiring new social inventions (Ogburn, 1936).
Ogburn's theory has contributed to the study of personnel administration in several ways. Current technology continues to transform society, and new social interventions are necessary as a result. New technologies result in greater productive capacity and wealth generation; however, this new economy also creates problems such as income gaps, and emerging technologies are likely to render many occupations obsolete. Ogburn's theory holds essentially that history will repeat itself, and that governments must address these problems as they did once before. Societal needs — such as the need for identity and efficacy — must be addressed rather than focusing solely on meeting basic economic needs. Ogburn's theory can be seen as applied to public personnel administration in the manner in which both public and private organizations strive to keep pace with rapidly changing technology.
"Adaptive leadership and political necessity in administration"
"Class struggle, Marxism, and administrative thought"
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