Understanding Public Organizations

We live in an organizational society. Our lives are intertwined with organizations - city police departments, state agencies, county departments, school districts, and more.

Most of us, when charged with designing an organization in whole or in part, will instinctively adopt the hierarchical organization chart as if it were a universal structural template. The public sector is no exception to this observation.

However, complex organizations require diverse organizational forms in order to adequately perform various types of work, and to cope with many challenges stemming from uncertainty and conflict that are built into our system of democratic governance. Appropriate structures are contingent upon such factors.

Public administration are expected to understand how an organizational entity can be better structured to achieve its purposes. Organization theory and behavior provides important insight for public administrators about the complex yet coherent ways in which people live and work together.