Development and implementation of new organizational structures in the public sector

DG.
2023;
: pp. 11 - 27
1
155th Military Representation of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine

Formulation of the problem. Effective operation and recovery of Ukraine during the wartime and post-war periods require the implementation of new organizational structures in the public sector aimed at ensuring the provision of high-quality public services. The existing principles of organizational design have their drawbacks and advantages, and they have the property of changing under the influence of external factors. It is necessary to consider these factors when developing effective organizational structures with defined objectives.

The implementation of new organizational structures in the public sector should be based on the integration of effective structures and competent leaders capable of implementing new public management approaches. For the effective operation of these structures, it is proposed to introduce concepts of public service administration based on theprinciples of new public management. Key competencies of a modern manager in the public sector include competencies: in activity management, people management, resource management, information management, change management, and personal development management.

Analysis of recent research and publications. The development of new organizational structures in the public sector has long been of interest to researchers from various fields of knowledge. This is an extremely complex and multifaceted phenomenon that requires interdisciplinary research for its understanding.

The review of contemporary literature on the formation of the theoretical foundation for the development and design of organizational power structures and their managerial activities as organizational processes shows that the issues of the theory and practice of organizational structuring and the functioning of executive bodies in the system of public administration and local self-government have been explored in the works of many leading Ukrainian scientists: V.Vakulenka, S.Popova, Ye.Borodina, A.Dehtiar, V.Kuibidy, V.Bashtannika, V.Zahorskoho, S.Kravchenko, I.Dunaieva, V.Dziundziuka, Yu.Surmina, M.Budnyka, M.Tulenkova and many others. Many works by foreign scholars are also dedicated to the mentioned question, including T.Burns, W.Bennis, M.Weber, C.Pollitt, R.Scase, K.Starkey, E.Ferlie, C.Hecksher, R.Haynes, H.Schroder and others.

However, at the same time, insufficient attention has been given to the development and implementation of new organizational structures in the public sector with the aim of improving the quality of public service delivery.

Determination of previously unresolved parts of the general problem. The above statement provides grounds to assert that the issue of developing and implementing new organizational structures in the public sector in Ukraine, aimed at ensuring the provision of high-quality public services, is not fully addressed in the existing scientific literature and requires further research.

This especially applies to the factors that need to be considered in their development and recommendations for their implementation.

Accordingly, the goal of the article is defined as the justification of the need for the development and implementation of new organizational structures in the public sector in Ukraine, aimed at ensuring the provision of high-quality public services.

Presentation of the main material. If we consider the history of management thought, we can identify several key approaches that have influenced the principles of organizational design, including the classical approach, bureaucratic approach, and organic approach.

Based on the results of research, one can identify some key factors that need to be considered when developing an organizational structure, namely:

  1. control, which includes informing all employees about the organization's goals, making necessary managerial decisions, and ensuring their implementation;
  2. technical design and support of systems and procedures for obtaining information from the external environment, conducting research and development, quality assurance, maintaining accounting records, ensuring compliance with the law, and keeping the organizational structure up-to-date;
  3. quality operational personnel, which includes effective procedures for recruitment, training, development, motivation, and care for the needs of the personnel directly involved in providing public services;
  4. quality leadership, which includes providing, organizing activities, developing, and motivating middle and lower-level managers who coordinate and convey goals and decisions to the operational personnel;
  5. organizational culture, which involves developing a relevant culture of quality and values aimed at ensuring the provision of high-quality public services.

In addition, there has been consensus in scholarly discussions regarding the competencies that leaders of public organizations should possess – they should have the same key competencies as managers in the private sector because they also need to become managers whose primary mission is to achieve the goals of their organizations, which are specified in meeting the needs of citizens in various areas through the provision of high- quality public services. These key competencies include competencies in activity management, people management, resource management, information management, change management, and personal development management. These are the competencies that have always been and continue to be the focus of internationally recognized management qualifications, at least for the last fifty years.

Public managers with these competencies are capable of successfully implementing the approaches of new public management, although it should be recognized that over the course of its existence, this concept has undergone changes in its understanding and interpretation. In an attempt to understand the new public management, Ferlie and colleagues [3] described four concepts of public service management based on the principles of new public management: performance management, post-Fordist management, excellence management, and public service-oriented management.

Considering the above, we have made ten assumptions about the context in which public service managers will need to work in the near future, allowing for the acquisition of necessary knowledge, development of relevant skills, and abilities in advance:

  1. The emphasizing on the ideas of collaboration will compel leaders to work together (but in a competitive environment) with other leaders by creating, including interdepartmental teams. It can be assumed that leaders will collaborate with individuals from organizations whose values and culture are not aligned with their own.
  2. The local public organizations will be caught between centralized evaluations of their effectiveness based on official criteria and local residents demanding increasingly higher quality of public services. It will require the widespread implementation of quality management and maintaining a balance between the price and quality of public services.
  3. National and international performance  evaluation systems will continue  to be implemented, compelling leaders to improve the quality of services and achieve specific performance of indicators. The ability of a leader to motivate, be entrepreneurial, manage stress, and assess risk will become more important.
  4. Demand for local services will increase, while resources per capita available to meet this growing demand will be decreased. Regardless of which political forces are in power, budgetary funds will remain within strict limits. Therefore, budgeting skills and the ability for quantitative process evaluation will become even more important for leaders.
  5. Leaders will increasingly engage in the creation and support of active stakeholder networks, making political acumen extremely necessary, especially in an environment of heightened transparency and oversight of leaders' activities.
  6. Social trends will have a negative impact on traditional family life models, and crime will continue to rise. All of this will increase the demands on social, educational, cultural, and law enforcement structures. It also emphasizes the need for ethical thinking, which is necessary for making optimal choices and resolving conflicts.
  7. The ability to manage ambiguous, uncertain, and contradictory information and understand it, will become increasingly valuable for making the best possible managerial decisions.
  8. Unemployment will persist, even under the best employment policies. Therefore, leaders will need to possess predictive, creative, and imaginative thinking, enabling them to act as agents of local development and support for communities affected by unemployment. Moreover, not only leaders themselves will need new skills and abilities, but they will also need to foster their development in others, both within the community and in the workplace.
  9. Uncertainty regarding the continued existence of certain public organizations and careers will leave leaders in these organizations feeling insecure. However, the ability to learn, retrain, and change career paths will help them overcome their vulnerability. Therefore, career management and personal development become extremely important.
  10. It can be expected that leaders will increasingly be required to manage the culture and values of their organizations, as these are crucial factors in ensuring the effective operation of all modern organizations.

Conclusions and recommendations. Therefore, in the development and implementation of new organizational structures in the public sector aimed at providing quality public services, the following factors need to be taken into account: control over decision-making and ensuring their execution, technical design and support of systems and procedures, high-quality operational personnel, quality leadership, and organizational culture.

We particularly emphasize the importance of quality (effective) leadership. Leaders in the field of public service delivery require knowledge and understanding that can reinforce their functional competence in managing resistance, change, operations, activities, people, finances, resources, communication, information, learning, and personal development. Leaders must have the ability to transfer their knowledge and understanding to different contexts, as the contexts in which public services are delivered will change in response to various technological, economic, social, political, legal, cultural, and other factors. Therefore, strategic thinking and change management should not be monopolized by the top leadership of public organizations. Contemporary leaders at all levels need to think reflectively about information, forecast the imagined future, creatively consider innovative developments, empathetically think about the consequences for others, and critically assess change options. A Сommunication Manager differs from a manager of communications because for the latter, communications are functional responsibilities, while for the former, it's a style of behavior and leadership

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