Should the public sector be run like a business?

SHOULD THE PUBLIC SECTOR BE RUN LIKE A BUSINESS?
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Introduction 2
Analysis and assessment 3
Conclusion 9
Bibliography 11
Introduction
In recent years, serious discussions about increasing public sector into private sector have been initiated among the social scientists. Using the term public sector and its importance to implement in private sector emerges from the national income statistics which is often considered as scientifically logical. However, the idea is still questionable.
This paper discusses the possibilities, and more importantly, the appropriateness of applying public sector into private sector as well as its effects on the society from both social and economical aspects.
Analysis and assessment
Public sector is a part of the whole national product collection which is made up of several sectors, and from a general point of view, both public sector and private sector are almost similar in this overall national product collection, making the product of economy singular. This assumption gives the idea that both public and private are equally important and productive. This makes it difficult to come to a decision about implementing public sector into private sector and justify its validity.
Government is often considered as a friendly service agency and people refer it as “our government” while talking about the services or decisions the government takes. Even the experts often refer to the term when they analyze social or economical state of the country, registering the decisions and values. Many scholars identify government as a totally different institute than any other social organization, stating that revenue and expenses are acquired by coercion instead of voluntary payment. According to Schumpeter (1942), “The theory which construes taxes on the analogy of club dues or of the purchase of the services of, say, a doctor only proves how far removed this part of the social sciences is from scientific habits of mind.”
On the contrary, people are doing things to satisfy the desires and needs of the consumers in private sector. Private sector operators and product manufactures create products to meet the requirements of the free market with the idea that the consumers will buy their products. And this is roughly the measurement of the importance of the service they offer. If a certain amount of money is spent to manufacture a specific product, the amount would be recognized as a prolific output for that product in private sector of the economy.
It is a regular fact for private sectors to adopt new technologies and innovative ideas to achieve cost saving operating efficiencies with a target to improve customer service. However, this is not a common practice among public service providers; namely, different government agencies. In fact, many of the common service practices by private sector are transferable to public service providers with dramatically changes in operating context. In today’s world, globalization and mega enterprise structure has narrowed the line between public and private operating infrastructure in which, accountability, social responsibility, public scrutiny and agendas of multi stakeholders became regular issues.
The skills and expertise of public sector workers and executives are often underrated by the people of private sector. Most of these critics in the public sectors gain their skills by working hard in complex, multicultural, ambiguous and politicized environment, and they have become very desirable and effective against the new challenges in private sector with the advance of technology, cultural diversity and environmental sustainability. It is not even rare to find an experienced person in private sector consulting private sector professionals about managing operations to improve efficiency and service quality. This is even more important for a technology driven or multicultural environment where cost reduction and speeding up the operating process is very crucial.
The difference between the mandate and mission of a government service provider and a private business is significant and diverse in many aspects. The utmost objective of any business organization is to make profit which is a clear and focused target and each every member and stakeholder within the organization knows and understands that. In the way of doing so, every member of the organization is directed in the same way in to introduce and execute creative strategic decisions within a clear context. These facts are not very present in a government service provider. In a government agency, the executive body serves a department and its main job is to keep the department or the government safe from any adverse exposure while providing necessary support for the mandate and mission of the department that can be interpreted in a different way by diverse stakeholder groups. This complex structure and order makes it difficult to represent a uniform set of interest for the people while segregating and separating authority to weaken the concentration of power as a defensive mechanism for the benefit of general public. Unavoidably, each group of stakeholders maintains a competing and parochial interest to achieve a command under the legislative right. This causes the government executive management to operate services that balance disparate agendas which is quite the opposite of any private sector. This is one of the major complexities in public domain and in evaluating the potential for transferring private sector into public sector, these complexities have crucial roles; mostly regarding systems, solutions and technological developments.
In general, the government is considered as a series of segments to promote ethical choices. In a democratic country, the government does not serve special interest and minimize personal influence. Hierarchy of public sectors ensures the effectiveness of that accountability by initiating policy decisions by force, which is often considered by many scholars and social scientists as the central theory of democracy. There are individuals with good moral qualities that ensure positive ethnic outcomes from public agencies. These qualities include optimism, courage and fairness. Sometimes they reflect an understanding of the ethical uncertainty of policies and people as well as the contextual morality of the public service and the paradox of process. This led to the government ethics that speaks out the codes of conduct for different professional organizations whose members work in the public sector while setting out values and principles to direct the members in offering the maximum possible level of service to the people without favoritism or having any concern for personal interest or profit.
On the contrary, many researchers argued that ethics in private sector are not adequate for public sector; mostly for public decisions. In general, public decisions contain serious ethical contents...