Contemporary Challenges in Public Management, Governance, and Leadership - Literature review Example

Contemporary Challenges in Public Management, Governance, and Leadership Name: Lecturer: Course: Date: Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Challenges in the age of austerity and uncertainty 4 Citizen participation and governance 5 Quality governance and government performance 6 Transparency, openness and accountability 7 Collaborative governance in a networked society 8 Applications of new technologies 9 Professionalism, public values, and ethics 10 Institutional design for MENA region 11 Conclusion 12 References 13 Contemporary challenges in public management, governance and leadership Introduction The public sector faces the complex task of addressing complex issues of local communities in the contemporary public management environment that is rife with uncertainty and austerity. These are aggravated by the inherent challenges that affect governance and leadership (Ashworth et al T 2013). While the public authority seeks to ensure that the management of public resources is effective and responsive to the public interests, the use of these resources is established in consequence of the electoral programs and public surveys in the view of meeting strategic objectives that satisfy the immediate and the long-term needs of the community, or the government. Critically therefore, the pressures from the challenges affecting public administration have far-reaching impacts that need review (Aguilar & Zavala 2011). This essay examines the contemporary challenges in public management, governance, and leadership. To ensure this, it explores the new challenges to public administration in the age of austerity and uncertainty. It further examines citizen participation and governance, quality of governance and government performance, and collaborative government in a networked society. Also discussed include the transparency, openness and accountability in the public sector, applications of new technologies for emerging public administration problems, ethics in the public sector and lastly, new institutional design for emerging policy challenges in the UAE and MENA region. Challenges in the age of austerity and uncertainty The age of austerity and uncertainty depict the periods of crisis or momentous policy change, which may trigger individuals into upsetting the balance. Additionally, they encourage the thought that political change is unparalleled, new policy-making situations are extraordinary or different from the past. For instance, in the UK’s current age of austerity, the conception of Majoritarian political system had generated fast and sweeping policy changes that appear unshakable (Storre 2008). However, these reforms bring new challenges, such as instances where policymakers only get to pay attention to few responsible issues. Additionally, the policymakers have limited cognitive ability to gather information. Rather, they rely on trial and error methods to develop policies. Next, the policies only get to represent own cause, and new policies are instituted to address problems caused by old policies. Additional challenge includes difficulty in measuring the achievement of implemented government initiatives with the view of justifying financing from the government. Lastly, there is also lack of central decision-making organisation combined with high level of street-level bureaucracy (Storre 2008). Citizen participation and governance According to Ziegenfuss (2000), participation is indeed a new component of reform movement or new administration. When the public leaders support participation, they show humility regarding how efficient organisations are created, since efficient organisations are as a result of collaborative efforts of the leaders and the citizens. Hence, the participative leaders tend to share information, power, and influence, since they view citizens as partners. As stated by Lachapelle and Shanahan (2007), while general resources exist for citizens appointed to local governmental positions, there may be a problem in developing broad and context-specific training materials that can prepare the citizens to participate in public service. Tesu (2012) acknowledges that interacting with the government officers offers citizenry an opportunity to nurture democratic ideals and to practice democratic ideals. As stated by Economic and Social Council (2010), citizen participation in governance creates crucial conditions for creating and maintaining the practicability of democratic societies. This kind of participation has the capacity to challenge and alter the traditional roles of citizens, where they were treated as outsiders. A critical challenge to citizen participation in the new millennium is seeking successful ways to engage the citizens in shaping their communities due to the associated social capital problems. According to Gibson et al (2002), the challenges in participation are in part due to the issues of programmatic and individual actions. For instance, while the public administrators look to establish relationships with the public, they create delays, as well as increase red tape. In turn, the public feel that while their contributions and suggestions are sought, they are rarely used in making administrative decisions. Such trends, according to Gibson et al (2002), discourage the public from participation in public administration. In extreme cases, once they feel that their concerns are not addressed, they may organise activist groups. Next, the general lack of civic education means that the citizens are unaware of the opportunities for participation. Poor communication channels used in communication between the public and the administrators threaten the leader’s roles in using public communication skills and interpersonal skills to address participation-induced conflicts, which can avert divisiveness. Hence, the leaders may lack the capacity to adequately allocate resources. Quality governance and government performance Governments in OECD countries, such as the United Kingdom are pressured to improve their public sector performance while at the same time containing growth of expenditure. While challenges, such as increased healthcare, aging population and costs pension pile pressures on the government budget, the public has continued to demand that their governments become more accountable. While most OECD countries are engaging in institutional reforms, the empirical evidence supporting effectiveness is limited due to the challenges, such as the intricacies in measuring efficiency. In particular, complexities in using performance information in budgeting processing are key challenges. According to Curristine et al (2007), it is difficult to determine the success of government initiative in order to justify the introduction of performance information in budgeting and managing processes. Due to the deficient systematic evaluation in OECD countries, there are no comparative quantitative data that measure the impact of such reforms on efficiency, performance, and effectiveness. According to Curristine et al (2007) most OECD countries struggle with such reforms. Additional challenges include improving measurement, seeking effective ways to incorporate performance information into the budgeting process, winning the attention of the key policymakers and improving the quality of information. Further, most governments are facing difficulties in providing decision-makers with quality, relevant and credible information in a timely manner, in addition to incentives to apply the information for informed decision-making during the budgetary processes. Transparency, openness and accountability An apparent causal link between transparency and effective governance is extensively promoted by public management literature. Transparency is an important factor that keeps the government honest, and which reduces the level of government corruption. According to Mulgan (2012), transparency and openness is analogous to absence of corruption. Still, the underlying challenge to transparency is the need to undertake complete overhaul of the bureaucratic and political culture and to depart from the traditional practices of confidentiality and caution to one that the government freely communicates with the public. Still, the culture or secrecy and confidentiality threaten the existence of transparent and open governance. A typical cultural challenge is promoted when the politicians and public servants are uncertain about the value of transparency to themselves. This, according to Ramafoko (2013), is a great challenge to transparency. Additionally, transparency and openness need the government departments to take responsibilities. This implies that the government agencies will need to institute their own standards and hold themselves accountable whenever they fall short of the standards. However, these remain a key challenge as cases of corruption may be inherent in the government agencies. Additionally, attitudes within the public service may cause organisational culture problems, which stand in the way of nurturing an integrity-driven human capital (Mulgan2012). Collaborative governance in a networked society The significance of collaboration lies on knowledge sharing. The modern-day networked society is at the verge of achieving greater collaboration between the individual citizens, state agencies nations, and non-governmental organisations (Vigoda-Gadot 2008). Collaboration offers opportunities for effective public management as it promotes better management of public assets by promoting the collective idea of shared responsibility between the public and the government, and the need to accomplish goals collaboratively rather than singly. Collaboration, in Vigoda-Gadot’s (2008) view, however, faces a challenge since getting the general public and the government agencies to work collaboratively requires extensive exchange between the two parties, which is however difficult due to distrust. Tesu (2012) suggests that in a world where competition is regarded as the 'name of the game', governments tend to fight more scrupulously for their part of the action through more effective response to the interests of the public. According to Vigoda-Gadot (2008), the terms of conflict and competition are the juxtaposition to collaboration in many respects. Hence, the existence of competitive strategies and actions has contributed to a greater level of fragmentation of the societies and distrusts. The instability, weakness, and volatility of government institutions, as well as people's mistrust towards the government institutions are the underlying challenges facing effective collaboration. Tesu (2012) also noted that the key challenges that public administration faces in implementing collaboration is creating a revitalised generation of public administrators who appreciate the value of participatory democracy. Applications of new technologies Technological advancements have led the public sector to greater responsiveness, choice and efficiency. Additionally, they have contributed to greater decentralisation and recruitment within the public service (Commonwealth of Australia 2013). Still, technologies for the modern-day public administration have brought a number of challenges in public administration. A key challenge regards security, where technologies, such as the internet have intensified insecurities of confidential public administration information due to the likelihood of cyber-attacks. Technology has also heightened unrealistic expectations on government efficiency by the public. One form of expectation is that regulation will be tolerable to allow newer activities to materialise. Still, a practical consideration while implementing strict deregulatory response is the probability of ignoring changing nature of risks that the digital public face who expect efficiency from the government (Commonwealth of Australia 2013). According to Denhardt (1999), emerging technologies have triggered public administrators in a trap called ‘technological imperative,” where they allow rational technical interests to surpass human values and interests. Denhardt (1999) further explained that public administrators find it difficult in using advanced technologies to promote rather than to limit their capacity for creativity, leadership and to exert personal responsibilities. The dynamic nature of the emerging technologies is also a challenge, as it requires that public organisations without digital media literacy be left out. Hence, continual training of public administrators on existing technological trends is critical. Commonwealth of Australia (2013) added that a critical challenge for industry regulators is navigating the pertinent regulatory predictability and confidence while simultaneously effecting change dynamics wherever there is a need for intervention. Professionalism, public values, and ethics Independent Service Delivery Monitoring Networks (ISDMN) (2011) defines ethics as the standards that guide actions and behaviours of individuals working within the public sector. In the contemporary public management and governance, modernisation of administrative methods and procedures in well technological enhancement would be futile if the personnel that need to apply the procedures and methods have low moral standards. A basic principle governing public management and governance is that high standard of professional ethics should be promoted and sustained (ISDMN 2011). Still, the public sector in modern-day world is faced with challenges, including the general perception that it is inherently characterised by unethical and unprofessional conducts. Among other challenges include the cases of corruption and dishonest management of the public affairs (Commonwealth of Australia 2013). Cases of patronage, bribery, and nepotism also threaten the possibility of an ethical public administration. Other challenges include conflict of interests, including such activities acceptance of external employment during tenure in the public service and misappropriating public funds for personal use. Misuse of inside information by accepting a business appointment after resigning or retiring is another challenge. Commonwealth of Australia (2013) also named the tendency to favour friends and relatives for appointments and contracts, protecting incompetent employees, manipulating trade policies or lowering standards and abuse of confidential organisational information for personal use as other factors. Institutional design for MENA region MENA region needs public management and governance that is accountable, transparent, participatory, and efficient. Hence, the MENA region would need public service reforms based on New Public Management (NPM) model, which encompass a range of tactics and strategies aimed at improving the public sector performance, such as devolution, decentralisation, collaboration, customer service and delegating discretion (Ocampo 1999). The model seeks to achieve accountability by promoting measurement of outcomes and communication or collaboration between the public administrators and the general public. In the case of MENA region, it will bolster enterprise approaches, which in turn fosters performance management, separation of administration, flexibility of department, devolution and collaboration between the public administrators and the private sector or citizens (Pfiffner 2004). Therefore, to manage the freshwater resources, which are scarce, the countries in the MENA region should adopt collaborative governance to ensure a networked society where a multi-stakeholder taskforces takes charge of fostering peer dialogues to support better governance in several countries, such as Morocco, Jordan and Tunisia (OECD 2013). In terms of renewable energy, a challenge exists in satisfying growing demand due to a consistent growth in demand that surpasses energy production. An urgent governance strategy that could be used in the MENA region is improving information dissemination through accountability, openness and transparency in the public sector to encourage multilateral technology initiative that any country can use, as well as the international and the private sector (OECD 2013). Conclusion This essay argues that in the contemporary world, the public management domain faces uncertainties due to frequent policy changes in the age of austerity, which affect their accountability, transparency, or collaboration with the public. The challenges characterising the age of austerity and uncertainty include tendency of the policymakers to pay attention to few issues they are responsible for and limited cognitive ability to gather information. While citizen participation in governance creates crucial conditions for creating and maintaining the practicability of democratic societies, it is faced by challenges where poor communication channels threaten resolution of participation-induced conflicts. Public sector performance faces challenges, such as increased healthcare, aging population and costs pension, which pile pressures on the government budget. Additional challenges include improving measurement, seeking effective ways to incorporate performance information into the budgeting process, winning the attention of the key policymakers and improving the quality of information Transparency and openness are important factor that keeps the government honest, and which reduces the level of government corruption. Still, the underlying challenge to transparency is the need to undertake complete overhaul of the bureaucratic and political culture and to depart from the traditional practices of confidentiality and caution to one that the government freely communicates with the public. Collaboration offers opportunities for effective public management. However, the existence of competitive strategies and actions has contributed to a greater level of fragmentation of the societies and distrusts. Technological advancements have led the public sector to greater responsiveness, choice and efficiency. Technology has also heightened unrealistic expectations on government efficiency by the public, as well as caused security concerns due to likelihood of cyberattacks. Still, the public sector in modern-day world is faced with challenges, including the general perception that it is inherently characterised by unethical and unprofessional conducts. Lastly, MENA region needs public management and governance that is accountable, transparent, participatory, and efficient based on New Public Management (NPM) model. 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