The current hope is that great leaps forward can be achieved through the use of computer technology to build ‘e-government’ platforms that can make a range of public goods and services accessible online. The use of modern technology to distribute governmental services will provide an entry to creating entrepreneurial government.
In this context, entrepreneurship is viewed as a process whereby an individual or a group of individuals use organised efforts and means for the purpose of capturing opportunities to create value, and grow by fulfilling wants and needs through innovation and uniqueness, irrespective of the resources currently controlled.
When applied to private and public sector operations, entrepreneurship is viewed as being fundamental to private sector organisational survival and growth through increased sales, market share, profitability and growth potential. From the public sector perspective, agencies that displayed entrepreneurial behaviour have been linked to superior organisational performance.
While many similarities exist between private and public sector entrepreneurship, researchers found some important differences relating to the key dimensions of:
- innovation;
- risk-taking;
- pro-activity;
- political environment;
- complexity;
- munificence (involves dynamism, technological opportunities, industry growth, and the demand for new products);
- organisational dynamism;
- structure/formalisation;
- decision-making;
- control;
- rewards/motivation;
- and performance measurement.
The challenge for public sector managers is to recognise the key similarities and differences between public and private sector entrepreneurship, identify the entrepreneurial processes that lead to various forms of entrepreneurship, and to verify the forms of this phenomenon that produce the best results for their organisation.
The past classical model of government was organised as an industrial era bureaucracy designed to eliminate inept patronage machines. When viewed within the dynamics of the current era of global competition, instant communication, a knowledge-based economy, and niche-markets; this model results in mediocre performance, inflexibility, and an obsession with control.
The heightened pace of globalisation dictates a new model of government which must be inspired by the idea of entrepreneurial government which describes a government that is adaptable, responsive, efficient, and effective.
Such a government must be able to produce high quality goods and services; be responsive to citizens; be led by persuasion and incentives rather than command; empower clients; and, especially, be entrepreneurial.
The need for transforming the public sector’s processes and procedures has long been acknowledged but implementation of significant initiatives has defied successive governments in Trinidad and Tobago. Guidelines for pursuing public sector reform were detailed 20 years ago by Osborne and Gaebler who developed an extensive argument for a complete transformation of bureaucratic government into entrepreneurial government. In their view, government should not be abolished, but should be ‘reinvented’.
Thus, the fundamental transformation of the organisation of government can be achieved, if the key principles, originally proposed by the authors, are adapted for integration into the fabric of governmental operations as modified below:
- Government should select alternatives to in-house delivery, such as contracting out, entering into public-private partnerships (where appropriate); and utilizing such devices as vouchers, volunteers, and seed money.
- Professional administrators should not run all aspects of programmes but instead empower clients to participate in management using: governing councils; management teams; and community councils.
- Competition should be injected into the governing process by such methods as bidding for tasks, internal rivalry among subunits, and competition among services for clients.
- Agencies should minimise the number of rules by which they operate and eliminate such tasks as line-item budgeting, year-end fund expiration, and detailed job classifications which could lead to a clear, one-niche mission.
- The performance agencies and fund allocation should be based on policy outcomes not programme inputs.
- Clients must be regarded as customers by giving them choices, surveying their attitudes, making services convenient, training employees in customer contact, test marketing, and providing increased access to e-government.
- Governments should not just spend money, but earn it as well from use fees, shared savings, enterprise funds, entrepreneurial loan pools, and internally competitive profit centres. This will specifically challenge the entitlement culture that exists locally.
- Governments should not just deliver services to meet ends, but prevent needs from arising in the first place. Examples are fire prevention, preventative maintenance, recycling, disaster prevention, antismoking campaigns, use of accrual accounting, and empowering regional governments.
- The institutions of government should be decentralised by a process of deconcentration of central agencies to local corporate areas, and devolution of authority to local authorities thereby encouraging teamwork, participatory management, labour-management cooperation, quality circles, and employee development programmes.
- Governments should not attempt to achieve ends only by command and control, but also by restructuring markets such as subsidised health insurance, incentives for downtown investment, and emissions trading.
While these principles were designed for the UK, the relevance to Trinidad and Tobago is clear, and some efforts have been made at implementing aspects of public sector reform on these bases.
However, the process has been painfully slow, but there is hope with the current greater emphasis on e-government which, in the future, should eliminate the need for many physical facilities provided by the government as entrepreneurial government facilitates online access to goods and services.
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Quelle/Source: Trinidad News, 11.04.2013
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