Posts Tagged ‘Public Sector’


Differences in Aims and Objectives in their Implications on Leadership Practices Differences in organisational aims and objectives have been found to be a significant difference between private and public sector organisations. This difference has implications on leadership practices in public and private sector organisations. In other words, usually there are clear performance indicators to assess the performances of organisational leaders in private sector and these indicators include company share prices, market share, and the levels of revenues. In cases of public sector organisations, on the other hand, performance indicators are vague, because organisational aim and objectives usually involve qualitative rather than quantitative elements. From this perspective, while the level of effectiveness of organisational leaders can be determined within a year or even shorter period of time on the basis of several quarterly performance of the organisation, longer period of time may be necessary to establish the level of effectiveness of leaders in public sector.   Differences in Organisational Stakeholder Expectations and their Implications on Leadership Practices  The variety and role of organisational stakeholders have been found as another point of a vast difference between private and public sector organisations. Establishing strategic relationships with stakeholders and meeting their expectations at a reasonable extent in private sector necessitates organisational leaders to adopt various roles simultaneously. In order to be successful, private sector organisational leaders need to be perceived as socially responsible by general public, they need to be perceived as dynamic and cost saving by shareholders, and at the same time organisational leaders need to be perceived as caring and motivational by the workforce. Arguably, meeting stakeholder expectations in public sector is less contradicted compared to meeting stakeholder expectations in private sector from leadership viewpoint. This is because in most cases no stakeholder group expects profit maximisation from public sector organisations, and…


February 25, 2014
By John Dudovskiy
Category: Leadership

This report represents a brief assessment of various aspects of primary education in the UK as an important merit good. The report starts with assessing the role of the UK government in providing primary education and this is followed by analysis of possibilities for private sector to provide primary education. Moreover, the report includes discussions of positive externalities of primary education and assesses the possibilities of market failure if the provision of primary education was left to provide to free market. Socially desirable merit goods are “goods that society deems so valuable that everyone should have them” (Frischmann, 2012, p.45). There are two basic characteristics of merit goods: the value of the good is not usually fully appreciated at the time of consumption, and consumption of merit goods has positive effects to other individuals (Economics Online, 2013). 1. Introduction 3 2. The Role of Government in Providing Primary Education 3 3. Private Sector as Provider of Primary Education 4 4. Positive Externalities of Primary Education 5 5. Provision of Primary Education by free Market and Possibility of Market Failure 7 6. Conclusions and Recommendations 9 References 10 How do I receive the report? Once payment is made you will receive a link to you e-mail you have registered with on Pay Pal or the e-email you have entered when specifying bank details to download the report. The report is downloaded in PDF format. The link will stay active for 7 days. How can I use the report to complete my academic assignment/research? Reports and essays offered by research-methodology.net are professionally written samples in their respective areas. Reports and essays are intended to be used as guides and sources of secondary data for reference purposes. I did not receive the link/I can not download the report? If you have any difficulties…


By John Dudovskiy
Category: Economics

There are several principal differences between public sector and private sector organisations, and these differences include organisational aims and objectives, organisational stakeholders and stakeholder expectations, the levels of public scrutiny, the levels of impact by political factors and others.   Organisational Aims and Objectives Private sector organisations pursue the main objective of profit maximisation. Top level executive and marketing management in private sector organisations may attempt to create an image of pursuing other objectives as well such as protecting the environment, making the lives of people more convenient, and creating value for people in many other ways. However, these objectives for private sector organisations are secondary, and they have been developed only to aid the primary objective of profit maximisation. Public sector organisations, on the other hand, usually pursue aims and objectives other than profit maximisation. Moreover, objectives of public sector organisations in the UK may relate to a wide range of areas such as policing, providing education, providing healthcare etc.   Organisational Stakeholders and Stakeholder Expectations Customers and shareholders are the most important organisational stakeholders for private sector organisations and their expectations are straightforward. Specifically, customers expect to get the best possible deal from the business, whereas the expectations of shareholders are closely associated with increasing profitability in short-term and long-term perspectives. In case of public sector organisations, on the other hand, stakeholder expectations are closely associated with the delivery of products and services in an adequate manner. It can be stated that population is the most important stakeholder group for public sector organisations.   The Levels of Public Scrutiny Public sector organisations are generally subjected to scrutiny to a greater extent compared to private sector organisations in the media and from the government. Moreover, the main reason behind this difference relates to the sources of funding of these…


December 13, 2013
By John Dudovskiy
Category: Management

The literature review has identified the main differences between private and public sector organisations to relate to organisational aims and objectives, organisational stakeholders and stakeholder expectations, the levels of public scrutiny, external environment and its impacts and sources of motivation for employees.   1. Differences in Organisational Aims and Objectives According to Kassel (2010), Chaston (2011) and others, organisational aims and objectives represent the main point for difference between public and private sector organisations. The main objective for the majority of private sector organisations relates to maximising financial returns for investors, whereas the majority of organisations in public sector have been found to pursue objectives other than profit maximisation, such as providing various services and products for the public (Kassel, 2010, Chaston, 2011). The level of clarity of organisational objectives has emerged as an additional difference between public and private sector organisations. Specifically, according to Wright et al. (2012), while the main or even only objective for private sector organisations – maximising profits is straightforward, and therefore clearly understood by employees at all levels, the perceptions of goal clarity amongst public sector employees tends to be lower.   2. Stakeholders in Public Sector and Private Sector Organisations and Their Expectations The type of stakeholders and stakeholders’ expectations has emerged as another point of stark difference between private and public sector organisations (Chaston, 2011). Stakeholders can be defined as “any party or group who is able to influence (affect) or be influenced (affected) by the organisation and its activities” (Brink and Berndt, 2009, p.156). Stakeholders can be divided into two categories: internal and external (Parhizgari and Gilbert, 2004, Crosby and Bryson, 2005). Internal organisational stakeholders have direct relationship with an organisation and they are directly impacted by performance of the organisation. External stakeholders, on the other hand, may not be impacted…


November 8, 2013
By John Dudovskiy
Category: Leadership

Major differences between public and private sector organisations have been specified and addressed by a range of management scholars. According to Wirick (2009) the main difference between public and private sector organisations relates to forms of ownership. Specifically, public sector organisations are owned and operated by government, whereas private sector organisations are not part of the government. The form of ownership as the main distinctive point between public and private sector organisations has also been mentioned by Kassel (2010), Sims (2010) and others. Linked to the point above, aims and objectives of organisations have also been specified by authors as a major point of difference between public and private sector organisations. Kassel (2010) and Starling (2010) assert that the primary objective of organisations operating in private sector is profit maximisation. Gallos (2008) advises not to be deluded by charitable acts of private sector organisations in regards to intentions and insists that all of these acts are aimed at supporting the primary objective of private sector organisations which is profit maximisation. The aims of public sector organisations, on the other hand, involve serving the interests of taxpayers through various manners according to the type of the organisation (Sims, 2010). For example, public schools aim to provide education to citizens within a country, whereas the objectives of public health organisations involve providing quality healthcare. Importantly, the source of funding of organisations represents another point of difference between public and private sector organisations (Sabatier, 2007). Namely, public sector organisations are funded by taxpayers; therefore serve the interest of taxpayers, while private sector organisations are funded by individuals and corporate investors aiming to make a profit.   References Gallos, J.V. (2008) “Business Leadership: A Jossey-Bass Reader” 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons Kassel, D.S. (2010) “Managing Public Sector Projects: A Strategic Framework for Success…


By John Dudovskiy
Category: Literature Review

According to Grigoroudis and Siskos (2009) as taken by Oliver (1997) “satisfaction is the consumer’s fulfilment response. It is a judgement that a product or service feature, or the product or service itself, provided (or is providing) a pleasurable level of consumption-related fulfilment, including levels of under-or overfulfillment” (Grigoroudis and Siskos, 2009, p.4) The Business Dictionary (online, 2013) defines private sector as a part of national economy that consists of private enterprises including personal sector (households) and corporate sector (companies). The definition of the public sector is suggested by The Free Dictionary (2011) as “the part of an economy that consists of state-owned institutions, including nationalised industries and services provided by local authorities” (The Free Dictionary, online, 2011). Although the term ‘quality’ on its own is widely known and does not require further elaboration, some authors have offered their viewpoints regarding the definition of the term within the context of customer services. Specifically, it has been stated that, “quality of the delivered products or services is essential to achieving customer satisfaction. The quality concept embraces how to meet all customers’ requirements, including how they are greeted on the telephone or at the counter, the speed with which a query is responded, providing new services when required, and ensuring the delivered services satisfy the community needs” (Nagel, 2000, p.47). Introduction According to Grigoroudis and Siskos (2009) the advantages of private sector organisations over the public sector organisations include better level of the service, more information about various aspects of customer services, better management, market testing and rewarding performance. Secondary data authors (Murley, 1997) argue that a part of the issue of effective customer service provision within public sector relates to the identification of customers in public sector in the first place. Discussing police services specifically, the author reasons that “their customers…


By John Dudovskiy
Category: Customer Services

Secondary data authors have proposed specific strategies public sector organisations can use in order to increase customer satisfaction levels. The most popular recommendations proposed by secondary data authors include adopting business approach towards the issues of customer services, increasing the level of funding of customer services, institutionalising training and development programs for public sector customer service representatives, outsourcing customer services operations to the private sector, and increasing the level of accountability of public sector customer service managers.   Adopting Business Approach towards the Issues of Customer Services The most popular recommendation found during the literature review in terms of increasing the quality of customer services in public sector organisations relates to the adoption of relevant business principles. Recommendations of this nature have been offered by authors like Kassel (2010), Sims (2010) and Starling (2010). The authors point to the high customer service standards in the private sector, and argue that the duplications of those practices by public sector could offer the benefits of increased levels of customer services. However, there is a serious shortcoming associated with the works of above mentioned authors. Specifically while they give a recommendation of adopting business approach towards the issues of customer services they recommendation is very general and authors fail to offer any specific guidance in terms of how the business approach could be efficiently adopted by public sector organisations.   Increasing the Level of Funding of Customer Services Beevers (2006), Flynn (2007) and Bovaird and Loffler (2009) associate the issues of lower customer services quality in public sector compared to the level of customer services of private sector to the amount of funding organisations in each sector attract. The authors convincingly argue that private sector organisations justly associate the achievement of their organisational objectives with the level of customer satisfaction that is directly…


August 22, 2012
By John Dudovskiy
Category: Management
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