Nature of Public Administration: Integral and Managerial Views

Public administration is one of those terms that sounds straightforward until you actually try to define it. Is the sweeper in a government office doing public administration? What about the clerk processing your ration card application, or only the IAS officer signing off on policy files? This exact question has divided scholars for over a century, giving rise to two competing schools of thought, the integral view and the managerial view. Understanding these two perspectives is essential because they shape how we design bureaucracies, train civil servants, and evaluate government performance. Let us unpack both views, the thinkers behind them, and why this debate still matters for governance today.

What do we mean by the nature of public administration? 🔗

Before diving into the two views, it helps to pin down what “nature” means here. The nature of public administration refers to its fundamental character, the kind of activities it covers, and the people it involves. It is essentially an inquiry into the boundaries of the discipline. Does administration include everything a government does, or only a specific slice of high-level activity?

The discipline itself is relatively young. Public administration emerged as a distinct area of study with the publication of Woodrow Wilson’s essay on the study of administration in 1887, though administrative activity itself is as old as organised society. As governments across the world, particularly in post-independence India, expanded their responsibilities from maintaining law and order to delivering welfare, education, health, and infrastructure, scholars felt the need to define what exactly falls within the scope of administration. This is where the two views entered the picture.

The integral view: Administration as a whole 🔗

The integral view takes a wide-angle lens. It argues that public administration is the sum total of all activities, whether manual, clerical, technical, or managerial, that are undertaken to achieve the objectives of the government. Nothing is too small or too routine to count.

Think of a district collectorate. Under the integral view, administration is not just what the Collector does in her chambers. It includes the peon who delivers files, the data entry operator updating land records, the driver ferrying officials for inspections, the section officer preparing notes, and the Collector making final decisions. Every cog in the wheel is part of the administrative process because every one of them contributes to implementing public policy.

Henri Fayol and L.D. White as champions of this view 🔗

The integral view finds strong backing in the work of Henri Fayol, the French industrialist often called the father of modern management. In his address to the Second International Congress of Administrative Science, Fayol argued that administrative science applies equally to public services and private enterprises of every size and purpose. For him, every employee in an undertaking, from the workman and shop manager to the head of department and general manager, takes part in administration. This inclusive conception naturally supports the integral view.

Leonard D. White, one of the earliest American scholars of public administration, carried this logic forward. White defined public administration as consisting of all those operations having for their purpose the fulfilment or enforcement of public policy. That definition deliberately throws open the doors. Delivering a letter, selling public land, negotiating a treaty, quarantining a sick child, removing litter from a park, all of these operations qualify as public administration under White’s formulation.

Marshall E. Dimock added philosophical depth to this view by arguing that administration concerns both the “what” and the “how” of government. The “what” refers to the subject matter or technical knowledge of a particular field, while the “how” refers to the techniques of management. Both dimensions are inseparable parts of administrative activity.

Why the integral view resonates in the Indian context 🔗

The integral view fits the Indian administrative reality quite well. India’s bureaucracy, inherited from the colonial period and expanded massively after independence, relies heavily on layered hierarchies where even the lowest functionaries play a significant role in policy implementation. Consider the delivery of a scheme like MGNREGA, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Its success depends not just on the Ministry of Rural Development drafting guidelines, but also on Gram Rozgar Sahayaks maintaining muster rolls, data entry operators updating payment information, and field assistants measuring completed work. Remove any of these links and the chain breaks.

This democratic essence, where every government employee’s contribution is recognised as administrative work, aligns with the constitutional spirit of cooperative governance across levels, from panchayats to the Union government.

The managerial view: Administration as top-level activity 🔗

The managerial view takes the opposite approach. It argues that administration is not about doing things but about getting them done. Under this view, only the activities of those performing managerial functions, planning, organising, directing, coordinating, and controlling, count as public administration. The clerical typist, the technical draftsman, and the manual worker are excluded from the definition, even if they are essential to the functioning of the office.

Luther Gulick, Herbert Simon and the POSDCORB frame 🔗

The leading proponents of the managerial view include Luther Gulick, Herbert Simon, Smithburg, and Thompson. Gulick famously captured the core of administrative activity in the acronym POSDCORB, which stands for Planning, Organising, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting, and Budgeting. For Gulick and his school, these seven functions essentially define what administrators do, and everything else is incidental.

Herbert Simon approached administration as a decision-making science, emphasising choice, rationality, and the managerial logic of coordinating resources to achieve organisational goals. The managerial view thus treats administration as a specialised activity concerned with efficiency, economy, and effectiveness.

The Fayol paradox 🔗

Interestingly, Fayol is sometimes cited as a supporter of the managerial view too, because his famous five functions of management, planning, organising, commanding, coordinating, and controlling, often shortened to POCCC, focus on what managers do. This is the paradox of Fayol. His theoretical framework is unmistakably managerial, but his inclusive statement that every employee participates in administration leans integral. Most scholars resolve this by placing Fayol primarily in the integral camp while acknowledging that his five functions laid the intellectual foundation for the managerial view.

Strengths of the managerial perspective 🔗

The managerial view has genuine strengths. It offers clarity by defining administration narrowly, it emphasises professional specialisation, it brings strategic focus to the study of government, and it keeps attention fixed on performance and results. If the integral view risks sprawling into everything, the managerial view keeps the discipline analytically sharp.

Key differences between the two views 🔗

Professor M.P. Sharma captured the difference between these two views as fundamental rather than cosmetic. The differences play out across several dimensions.

Scope of activities 🔗

The integral view embraces manual, clerical, technical, and managerial activities alike. The managerial view limits itself to managerial functions only. Under the integral approach, administration in a public health department would include everything from vaccinators in the field to the health secretary. Under the managerial approach, only the planning and supervisory activities of senior officials qualify.

People involved 🔗

The integral view includes the activities of every person engaged in the organisation, from the attendant and driver to the secretary and head of state. The managerial view restricts itself to the activities of a few persons at the top.

Dependence on subject matter 🔗

Under the integral view, administration varies from one sphere to another depending on the subject matter. Administering health is different from administering railways because the technical content differs. The managerial view holds that administration is the same everywhere because managerial techniques like planning and coordinating do not change with subject matter.

Getting things done versus doing things 🔗

A neat way to remember the distinction is that the managerial view treats administration as getting things done through others, while the integral view treats it as doing the things themselves as a collective enterprise.

Limitations of each view 🔗

Neither perspective is without its weaknesses. The integral view, by including everything, risks making the concept of administration so broad that it loses analytical power. If administration is everything a government employee does, then it becomes difficult to isolate what is distinctive about administrative work as opposed to technical or manual labour.

The managerial view faces the opposite problem. By focusing narrowly on top-level functions, it tends to overlook the political and social dimensions of public administration and underplays the contributions of those who actually carry out policy on the ground. Critics also point out that an obsession with managerial techniques can make public administration seem apolitical, which it rarely is in practice.

Why this debate matters for governance today 🔗

The debate is not merely academic. It has real consequences for how we organise training, accountability, and reform. If you accept the integral view, then capacity building for the bureaucracy must cover every level, from group D staff trained through the Department of Personnel and Training to senior officers at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. If you lean managerial, investments in leadership development for the top ranks take precedence.

Modern governance tends to blend both perspectives. E-governance platforms like DigiLocker and UMANG streamline both routine service delivery and strategic coordination, drawing on the integral recognition that frontline execution matters while applying the managerial emphasis on efficiency and design. Performance management systems set targets for all levels of employees. Citizen service centres under schemes such as Common Service Centres integrate backend management with front-line service delivery, reflecting the practical synthesis of both views.

A practical synthesis 🔗

Contemporary public administration increasingly adopts a systems approach that values both perspectives. The integral view reminds us that governance is a team effort, that a policy is only as good as the weakest link in its implementation chain. The managerial view reminds us that someone has to plan, coordinate, and hold the whole enterprise accountable, and that this work requires distinct skills and training.

In India, where the state’s reach extends from metropolitan policy chambers to the remotest village panchayat, both views find daily expression. The Collector’s strategic planning for flood relief is administration, and so is the patwari verifying damaged fields. The Secretary’s budget preparation is administration, and so is the data operator entering scheme beneficiaries. Recognising both dimensions gives us a richer, more realistic grasp of how government actually works.

What do you think? Looking at the Indian administrative system you have observed, whether in your local municipal office, a government hospital, or a district collectorate, does the integral view or the managerial view offer a more accurate picture of how things get done? And if you were designing a reform programme for a government department, which perspective would you prioritise, and why?

References

1. https://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/25454/1/Unit-1.pdf
2. https://nrega.nic.in/
3. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1978/simon/biographical/
4. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-introductiontobusiness/chapter/field-of-management-theory/
5. https://dopt.gov.in/
6. https://digilocker.gov.in/
7. https://www.umang.gov.in/
8. https://csc.gov.in/