Collaborating public managemant Reading Review - Book Report/Review Example

Collaborating Public Management Performance of the whole network can sabotage as a result of poor performance of a member organization or a conflictbetween two member organizations. In order to make a network strong, the manager needs to know the art of governing by network that involves assigning tasks, informing, making different members coordinate with one another, solving dysfunctional conflicts, completing data records and meeting shortages of capacity. The network manager must have a strong oversight in order to predict the calamities and take necessary action in time instead of later reacting upon sudden show-up of upsets.

Only competitors who are fairly compatible should be included in the network, and the goals for each should be properly defined. In order to improve the efficiency of network, partners should not be burdened with excessive compliance. Cost and standard of quality needs to be identified before inviting bids. Government should, at all times, maintain termination rights by way of fashion transition plans. According to Zia, Meek, and Koliba (2010), Milwaukee Welfare to Work and New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles are two examples of successful networks.

The former happens to be the most sophisticated social service network in the country while the latter has recently successfully encountered many high-profile problems of contracting, though it needs to improve its oversight. Power is the life of administration. The sources of power and their limitations in itself requires careful administration. In order to make the administration strong and objective, power needs to be budgeted. The mandate in an executive order depends upon the group demand’s political strength that it embodies.

Congress and President formulate laws and political energies. The role of a presidency as a reservoir of power from which various agencies draw their share distorts the reality. The flow of political power in an organizational setting occurs both from top to bottom and reverse. Subordinates do possess certain amount of power other than that vested in them by the top management. However, the disorderliness of American politics has made the theory of administration neglectful of the adequacy and sources of power (Long, 1949).

Bureaus and agencies are busy gaining political support. Power’s balance between legislature and executive is affected by shifts in the group and public support. The American congress tends to limit the role of presidency to constitutional monarch. The term “ecology” is of prime importance in the field of public administration. The late Harvard Professor John M. Gaus knitted the concepts of public administration into the problems of modern American society. Gaus asserted that public administration was influenced by its ecology.

Gaus approached ecology through change and was very optimistic about the role of change in society, though he had mixed views about human society. Recently, Charles A. Beard made certain government axioms to link public administration with the environmental change. Thus, both society and environment explain the relation of ecology with public administration. Justice Holmes considers paying taxes a way of buying civilization (Gaus, 1947). Citizens need to understand the government’s ecology in order to make the task more fruitful and beneficial.

References: Gaus, J. M. (1947). The ecology of public administration. Tuscaloosa, Al: University of Alabama Press. Long, N. E. (1949). Power and administration. Public administration review, 9(4): 103- 108. Zia, A., Meek, J. W., and Koliba, C., (2010). Governance Networks in Public Administration and Public Policy. CRC Press.