Different aspects of modern administration

• Author: Edyta Sokalska
• Pages: 445-455

445

EDYTA SOKALSKA*

DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF MODERN ADMINISTRATION

In the last few decades, fundamental changes transformed societies

all over the world. These changes included the development of a global

economy and the rapid progress and widespread adoption of information

technology. Cooperation between different countries in dealing with the new

ways of administration and government started to be an important issue. The

present study analyses recent theoretical trends of modern public

administration and deals with rational models of administration. There are

also shown connections between different theories of administration as well

as modern academic researches connected with this theme.

The public sector underwent a huge transformation, leading to the

emergence of what has been called the New Public Management (NPM).

New Public Management is a kind of management philosophy used by

governments since the 1980s to modernize the public sector. NPM is a

broad and very complex term used to describe the wave the public sector

reforms throughout the world since that time. Based on public choice and

managerial schools of thought, new public management seeks to enhance

the efficiency of the public sector and the control that government has

over it. The main hypothesis in the NPM reform is that more market

orientation in the public sector will lead to greater cost-efficiency for

governments, without having negative side effects other objectives and

considerations. Some modern authors say that New Public Management

has already reached the top and they proclaim that NPM is ‘dead’. They

argue that the cutting edge of change has moved on to digital era

governance focusing on reintegrating concerns into government control,

holistic government and digitalization. And as a result of this, in the

1990s and early 21st century was put forward a new model of public

administration – the New Public Service. It was proposed by Robert B.

Denhardt and Janet Vinzant Denhardt and focused on people being treated as

‘citizens’ rather than ‘customers’. They regard the citizen’s primary role as a

participation in the government and activity throughout the process of

implementing policy, instead of the end product of policies.

In the last few decades, fundamental changes transformed societies

all over the world. These changes included the development of a global

economy and the rapid progress and widespread adoption of information

technology. Cooperation between different countries in dealing with the

* The University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland.