Line and Staff Functions in Public Organizations скачать в хорошем качестве

Line and Staff Functions in Public Organizations

The notions of line functions and staff functions in an organization can be traced back to very traditional treatments of formal organization. They deal with programs or policies having direct impact on outside clienteles and are ultimately accountable to a superior in the performance of substantive responsibilities. Staff functions were originally defined as consisting of advisory activities supporting the ability of line personnel to carry out their duties. These could be, for example, financial and budgetary, personnel administration, planning, purchasing, and legal counsel. More recently, the notion of staff activities has undergone some revision accepted by most in the field. Line personnel are usually concerned with the immediate and the substantive aspects of activity. Those engaged in longer-range planning typically concern themselves with where the agency may be going in five or ten years. Several areas of interaction among functions are important in public administration organizations. First, the activities of such diverse units in any organization require some degree of coordination. The likelihood of conflict is greatest between line and staff personnel; the most obvious point of potential clash is in their very different time perspectives and their order of priorities. Second, some kinds of conflicts between the different types of personnel are virtually unavoidable. For example, a reform-minded city manager’s attempts to centralize the purchasing function may infuriate department directors who have their own arrangements with suppliers and resent giving up their authority and discretion. Finally, these traditional distinctions are increasingly seen as less important in an era of rapid change inside and outside of organizations. In particular, as long-term strategic planning has taken on greater legitimacy, the planning function has become more closely integrated with daily operations. Reciprocal understanding is growing, blurring old distinctions between line and staff. In their demands for more and better program analysis before policy commitments are made, many political leaders have further enhanced the position of staff personnel in relation to their line counterparts. As societal demands and management techniques have changed, the distinctions between line and staff functions have become increasingly less significant.