Management of Business and Public Organizations

Public administrators are often challenged to differentiate between the "public interest" and the "public's best interest" as they participate in decision-making processes focused on resolving problems. Richard C. Leone (1975), in an early essay on public interest advocacy and public administration, commented that one of the most important tasks of public administration professionals, agencies, and regulatory bodies is to ensure that in vital areas of private activity, the interest of the public is not overridden by private considerations of economic gain. Similarly, according to Leone (1975), public administrators must also examine policies to determine if they fully and meaningfully address broad and comprehensive public interests that are not limited to a small segment of the population or a narrow area of social concern.

The difficulty of distinguishing between the "public interest" and the public's "best interest" was also discussed theoretically by Simon, Smithburg, and Thompson (1976) in an early overview of the functions of public administration. These theorists defined the "public interest" as a vast body of concerns reflecting prevailing as well as idealized notions of "good" and of what must and should be done to resolve social problems that impact specifically on certain groups and generally on society as a whole. More recently, Thomas J. Barth (1992) stated that government policy can be deemed as being in t

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2) sees public administrators as trustees of the public interest. These governmental agents are charged with ensuring that programs and policies implemented by government are in accordance not only with prevailing law and custom, but also with a vision of the democratic ideal. This necessitates distinguishing between programs that may benefit a small group of elites at the expense of the larger society and those programs likely to have a broader impact. Public administrators may be individuals who simply carry out the directives of political superiors; they may be relatively passive actors whose task is simply to ensure that policy decisions taken elsewhere are carried out. Alternatively, public administrators can function as change agents or social engineers who broker the conflict between competing interests to produce a peaceful outcome. In the former instance, a public administrator simply implements social welfare and other policies determined by legislative bodies of all types (from Congress to State Legislatures, City Councils, and so forth) and does not attempt to shape the policies underpinning programs. In the latter instance, the public administrator takes a more assertive role in working to identify what social
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Thomas Barth, City Councils, Austin Altpeter, Vinzant Roback, Richard Leone, Smithburg Thompson, public administration, public administrators, Organizations Public, Box RC, Antitrust Bulletin, Altpeter MA, social welfare, barth 1992, boards commissions, mitchell 1997, levinson 1997, public represents, public policy, salamon 1999, edwards et al, et al 1998, edwards austin altpeter, social welfare agenda, vinzant roback 1994,
Approximate Word count = 2015
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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