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Cult of the MBA

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Richard Common discusses the Cult of the MBA: Implications for European post-experience public management education.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 25, 2024

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This video video discusses the Masters in Public Administration (MPA), comparing it to the well-known Masters in Business Administration (MBA). While both degrees are post-experience qualifications aimed at individuals with professional management experience, the MPA focuses specifically on managing in the public sector and government.

Historically, the MPA has not garnered as much recognition or popularity as the MBA, which has become the standard qualification for business managers. Recent years, however, have seen an increased demand for MPA programs, particularly following the economic pressures and critiques of excessive public spending in the 1970s. This video video led to the emergence of "New Public Management," which incorporated business management practices into the public sector.

This video video also addresses how the MPA's relevance varies globally, influenced by differing political and administrative cultures. For instance, Anglophone countries often embrace market-oriented public management reforms more readily than continental European countries, where civil service roles are traditionally held in higher esteem and more resistant to such changes.

The author illustrates the challenges of implementing these reforms, such as dealing with corruption and bureaucratic resistance, while also mentioning international organizations like the OECD and the World Bank, which help shape public management practices worldwide.

Furthermore, there is a discussion on the credibility of the MPA compared to the MBA. Although MPAs could offer valuable skills for public sector managers, their perceived status varies by region; they are more respected in Europe and China than in the UK, where public sector managers often opt for MBA programs that may not fully address their specific challenges.

Overall, the importance of well-managed public services is emphasized, suggesting that the MPA's role in improving governmental management should be re-evaluated to enhance its appeal and relevance in different contexts.

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The MPA stands for Masters in Public Administration,

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and its history is almost as long as that

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of its better known

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and more celebrated, sister of qualification, the,

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the MBA Master in Business Administration.

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Um, except that it's probably hasn't got the same amount

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of attention simply because it's about

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managing in government and, and the public sector.

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Um, so like the NBA, its roots are American,

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but, it's just caught on in different parts of the world

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to various degrees.

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Whereas the MBA has generally become the accepted,

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post experience qualification for business managers.

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The MBA has not had the same amount of traction,

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but it's, it's what's called a post experience degree,

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like the MBA in that it's,

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a degree the postgraduate award offered

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to practicing public sector managers who

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have a minimum level of experience,

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and seniority within the organization.

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So that's what it pretty much shares with the MBA.

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But obviously there are things in the curriculum that

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are different, and there are some things that are similar.

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Um, and I can talk about the, the diff key differences if,

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if you, if you like later.

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But the MPA program is the post experience award for,

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public administration.

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What the literature has done over recent years has,

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if anything, has increased, if you like, demand

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for MPA type programs,

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and I'll explain that in short if I can.

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Um, but certainly since the high,

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so-called high water Growth of Public Expenditure,

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which was perceived to have been reached

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in the United States in the kind of late sixties versus

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what I've argue that it's peaked, if you like, with,

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with expenditure on the Vietnam War.

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Um, economists started to question, unsustainable levels

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of public spending

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and started to propose solutions about

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what governments might do,

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to curb excessive public expenditure.

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And a number of suggestions were put forward that were then

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internationalized and popularized, if you like,

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across the world, because they seem to offer good solutions

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to, to big government.

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Um, and in the uk for example,

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the government in waiting on the Margaret Thatcher,

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in the 1970s did invite some of these

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American economists over to the Institute

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for Economic Affairs to listen to, their proposals

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for reforming the public sector.

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Uh, and this gave rise

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to something called Public Choice Theory,

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which was basically an economic analysis of,

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of political behavior and how government bureaucrats behave.

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I'm, I'm slowly coming to the point where,

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where there's relevance here for, the, the MPA programs,

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but what happened was that commentators

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and writers seized upon this strand of economic thought

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and started devising reforms that would replicate

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this kind of economic analysis

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to public sector organizations.

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And the result that emerged in the 19, the late 1980s

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and the early 1990s was a phenomenon known

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as new public management.

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Uh, and to keep things very simple,

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new public management was really the application

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of business management techniques to, to the running

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of the government and public sector,

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which was considered revolutionary and,

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and was also resisted quite heavily

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in a number of countries.

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Uh, the United States arguably was at the forefront of this.

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But there's writers such as Christopher Hood, for instance,

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who, who kind of followed this closely.

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He was at the London School of Economics at the time,

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and he, he argued that

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New Zealand treasury was in fact putting together the first

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manifesto of what became the new public management.

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So this is idea that government can be run more efficiently

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and effectively by applying the techniques

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and the skills,

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and solutions that, that are on offer or private businesses.

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Um, and these ideas have, you know,

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didn't suddenly appear in the 1970s.

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They've been in circulation, you know, throughout,

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if you like, the 20th century.

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But I think the immediacy of the problem

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of big government spending that emerged, particularly

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during the economic crises of the 1970s, meant

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that politicians picked up on this,

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and started to feed it into their own

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government reform programs.

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So the argument was that a public sector manager,

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whether you are working in a, you know, government agency

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or a local authority

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or running a police service, should acquire the same kind

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of skills,

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and, aptitude, if you like,

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of their private sector counterparts.

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And the MBA program, became attractive

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to public sector managers.

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They felt that they could be more business-like,

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in inverted commerce and respond to the demands

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of the politicians who were saying, we need

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to reform what you are doing.

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We need to expose you to the discipline

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of the marketplace.

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Things that public sector managers were not familiar

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with at the time, and post experience programs like the MBA

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were seen as kind of use useful conversion

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mechanisms for doing this.

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But at the same time, MBA programs aimed at business, people

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missed some of the unfortunate, important features of,

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of the public sector, most usually the, the, the kind

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of political environment, within which,

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public sector managers operate.

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Uh, and, and so there was this kind of uneasy, if you like,

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reliance on, on business type programs

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that weren't always suitable for the business

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of running government.

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When people analyze the republic management,

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and some people argue that it's still happening,

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there are other people saying that it's evolved

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and that we should be talking about,

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what's called new public governance.

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Um, and that's kind of separate question, going back

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to your question, is that it

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looks different in different places.

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Yeah. So what might be easily implemented in,

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in the United Kingdom,

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has been resisted largely in places like France or Germany,

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although there might be some modifications.

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So there are kind of two pressures going on.

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The first pressure comes from

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the international community,

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and you mentioned europeanization.

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Um, you know, member countries were meant to harmonize

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and converge with around European Union policy

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and countries that exceeded the European Union,

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particularly those during the two thousands,

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ones I'm probably most familiar with in Eastern Europe,

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like Romania and Bulgaria had to align themselves with,

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the kind of demands

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that were coming from the European Commission in terms of

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how they managed their public sector.

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And these were mediated by the different political

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and administrative cultures in each country.

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And it's argued that, you know, if you look at some

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of the prime examples, if you like,

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of management in government, like the United States,

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Britain, New Zealand, these anglophone countries had very,

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very different administrative culture from that

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of continental Europe.

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Uh, and on continental Europe, status

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of civil servants were, were such that they were seen

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as being, part of government

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and largely resisted these kind of business like approaches.

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Not entirely, but this is a very broad brush thing.

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This, the other point relates

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to international organizations is that the OECD,

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for example, or, or,

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or the, world Bank, for instance, will have,

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attend, experts.

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Uh, and they, they're very good at producing papers

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and research that other countries

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who don't have this necessarily have the expertise

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or, the resources to,

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to engage in public management reform will we'll sit up

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and take notice of.

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Um, and so there's this kind

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of general international consensus around

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how government should be managed, which is a reflection of

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the new public management I was talking about.

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But there are difficulties in implementing it,

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and the difficulties usually come from, you know,

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opening up public sector organizations to market competition

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where markets might not exist.

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People fail to understand competition in situations

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where there's a high level

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of public sector corruption for whatever reason.

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So the use of contracts to deliver public services,

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runs into, difficulties.

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A lot of political corruption around,

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and of course resistance from the bureaucracy itself,

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basically bureaucrats and managers or human beings.

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And they don't like sudden rapid change

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that could undermine their status and authority,

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and expose themselves, if you like, to, to, to competition.

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So in Australia, for instance, they started moving,

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you know, senior public managers onto short term performance

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related contracts.

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Uh, and there was an argument that that would,

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that undermines un undermine, sorry, the,

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the public sector ethos that, you know, dedication

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to public service is not something that

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can be judged simply on, on the number

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of set number of outputs.

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Uh, very often the public sector produces things

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that people value, but can't always be quantified or,

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or reduced to, you know, an economic,

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calculation, new public management.

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And its subsequent variations, if you like,

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have been subject to internationalization,

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but they are played out very different ways in individual

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countries, countries in Southeast Asia,

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and on the surface, for example, you would think

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that Hong Kong and Singapore, very similar cases,

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but the way now are special administered region of China,

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but in those two regions, if you like,

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it is, is very different.

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And it's subject to, to local political environments

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and local political culture.

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So, you know, it's,

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it's not smooth, it's not straightforward.

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And the last thing I just want to add in relation to

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that is, just going back

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to the question about Europeanization,

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European Commission would be very conscious of this.

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Uh, and for countries that, wish

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to join the European Union

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or the new accession, the, the ones

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that have recently joined the European Union, they,

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they put in place twinning arrangements,

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to put into their bureaucracies expertise

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that would help them think about those reforms.

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Uh, and I've been personally involved,

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quite a few years ago with, a twinning arrangement

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between Estonia and Georgia.

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Uh, Georgia's not part of the European Union,

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but was EU aspirant at the time.

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Going back to the paper that we presented recently, it's

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because both my co-author and I are, I've taught on both MBA

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and MPA programs,

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and we've struck by the, the number of

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public sector managers that would choose

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to do an MBA program,

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but ultimately were frustrated by some

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of the content they felt didn't address their

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day-to-day concerns.

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You know, including, managing the political environment,

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understanding the policy process, you know, dealing

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with interest groups, things like that.

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Um, yet the MBA had more so-called credibility,

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because of its long establishment, the, the title

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of the paper that suggests, that the,

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the MBA almost has a court light status.

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And I've seen that written about certain, you know,

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Ivy League American schools.

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We wondered, if it was possible for the MPA to,

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to be elevated in a similar way.

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And this is the implication for, for European,

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post experience postgraduate qualifications,

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that the attractiveness of an MPA program needs

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to be revisited and that some of the best features

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of MBA programs could well be emulated.

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Um, because at the end of the day,

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although a functioning, thriving economy,

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which is managed well is very important for society,

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people demand

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and use public services as well, whether sometimes,

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whether they choose to or not,

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or whether they're aware of it or not.

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Uh and so it's just as important that,

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government is managed just as well as business.

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Um, so if you like, the rationale

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for these programs is, is pretty much the same.

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Uh, but we found that in some countries,

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the MPA is, is valued.

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Uh, and in other countries, not so much.

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So, for example, the UK we know is left the European Union,

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but even when we were part of the European Union, the MPA,

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was not particularly well valued

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by practicing public sector managers.

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Uh, and if they did go for postgraduate experience,

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they would choose sort of MBA or business type programs.

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Whereas in Europe, the MPA is, is, is kind of more popular.

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Uh, it, it's is better organized

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and has its own, professional accreditation,

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under the E-A-P-A-A.

14:35.555 --> 14:37.895
Um, and there are no UK universities

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that have E-A-P-A-A accreditation.

14:41.555 --> 14:44.455
For example, plenty of MBA association

14:44.455 --> 14:46.295
of MBA accreditations, but not that.

14:47.165 --> 14:50.865
Um, and it's to do with political cultures, it's to do with

14:50.965 --> 14:54.725
Status of public servants, how well they're valued.

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And it's particularly popular, in places like China,

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that see MPAs as a vehicle, if you like,

15:04.025 --> 15:08.205
for wide widespread public sector management improvement.

00:00 - The MPA stands for Masters in Public Administration, and its history is almost as long as that of its better known and more celebrated, sister of qualification, the, the MBA Master in Business Administration. except that it's probably hasn't got the same amount

00:22 - of attention simply because it's about managing in government and, and the public sector. so like the NBA, its roots are American, but, it's just caught on in different parts of the world to various degrees. Whereas the MBA has generally become the accepted, post experience qualification for business managers. The MBA has not had the same amount of traction, but it's, it's what's called a post experience degree, like the MBA in that it's,

00:57 - a degree the postgraduate award offered to practicing public sector managers who have a minimum level of experience, and seniority within the organization. So that's what it pretty much shares with the MBA. But obviously there are things in the curriculum that are different, and there are some things that are similar. and I can talk about the, the diff key differences if, if you, if you like later. But the MPA program is the post experience award for,

01:25 - public administration. What the literature has done over recent years has, if anything, has increased, if you like, demand for MPA type programs, and I'll explain that in short if I can. but certainly since the high, so-called high water Growth of Public Expenditure, which was perceived to have been reached in the United States in the kind of late sixties versus what I've argue that it's peaked, if you like, with,

01:56 - with expenditure on the Vietnam War. economists started to question, unsustainable levels of public spending and started to propose solutions about what governments might do, to curb excessive public expenditure. And a number of suggestions were put forward that were then internationalized and popularized, if you like, across the world, because they seem to offer good solutions to, to big government.

02:27 - and in the uk for example, the government in waiting on the Margaret Thatcher, in the 1970s did invite some of these American economists over to the Institute for Economic Affairs to listen to, their proposals for reforming the public sector. and this gave rise to something called Public Choice Theory, which was basically an economic analysis of, of political behavior and how government bureaucrats behave.

03:03 - I'm, I'm slowly coming to the point where, where there's relevance here for, the, the MPA programs, but what happened was that commentators and writers seized upon this strand of economic thought and started devising reforms that would replicate this kind of economic analysis to public sector organizations. And the result that emerged in the 19, the late 1980s and the early 1990s was a phenomenon known as new public management.

03:39 - and to keep things very simple, new public management was really the application of business management techniques to, to the running of the government and public sector, which was considered revolutionary and, and was also resisted quite heavily in a number of countries. the United States arguably was at the forefront of this. But there's writers such as Christopher Hood, for instance, who, who kind of followed this closely.

04:05 - He was at the London School of Economics at the time, and he, he argued that New Zealand treasury was in fact putting together the first manifesto of what became the new public management. So this is idea that government can be run more efficiently and effectively by applying the techniques and the skills, and solutions that, that are on offer or private businesses. and these ideas have, you know, didn't suddenly appear in the 1970s.

04:38 - They've been in circulation, you know, throughout, if you like, the 20th century. But I think the immediacy of the problem of big government spending that emerged, particularly during the economic crises of the 1970s, meant that politicians picked up on this, and started to feed it into their own government reform programs. So the argument was that a public sector manager, whether you are working in a, you know, government agency

05:10 - or a local authority or running a police service, should acquire the same kind of skills, and, aptitude, if you like, of their private sector counterparts. And the MBA program, became attractive to public sector managers. They felt that they could be more business-like, in inverted commerce and respond to the demands of the politicians who were saying, we need

05:38 - to reform what you are doing. We need to expose you to the discipline of the marketplace. Things that public sector managers were not familiar with at the time, and post experience programs like the MBA were seen as kind of use useful conversion mechanisms for doing this. But at the same time, MBA programs aimed at business, people missed some of the unfortunate, important features of, of the public sector, most usually the, the, the kind

06:13 - of political environment, within which, public sector managers operate. and, and so there was this kind of uneasy, if you like, reliance on, on business type programs that weren't always suitable for the business of running government. When people analyze the republic management, and some people argue that it's still happening, there are other people saying that it's evolved and that we should be talking about,

06:44 - what's called new public governance. and that's kind of separate question, going back to your question, is that it looks different in different places. Yeah. So what might be easily implemented in, in the United Kingdom, has been resisted largely in places like France or Germany, although there might be some modifications. So there are kind of two pressures going on. The first pressure comes from

07:13 - the international community, and you mentioned europeanization. you know, member countries were meant to harmonize and converge with around European Union policy and countries that exceeded the European Union, particularly those during the two thousands, ones I'm probably most familiar with in Eastern Europe, like Romania and Bulgaria had to align themselves with, the kind of demands that were coming from the European Commission in terms of

07:45 - how they managed their public sector. And these were mediated by the different political and administrative cultures in each country. And it's argued that, you know, if you look at some of the prime examples, if you like, of management in government, like the United States, Britain, New Zealand, these anglophone countries had very, very different administrative culture from that of continental Europe. and on continental Europe, status

08:17 - of civil servants were, were such that they were seen as being, part of government and largely resisted these kind of business like approaches. Not entirely, but this is a very broad brush thing. This, the other point relates to international organizations is that the OECD, for example, or, or, or the, world Bank, for instance, will have, attend, experts. and they, they're very good at producing papers

08:48 - and research that other countries who don't have this necessarily have the expertise or, the resources to, to engage in public management reform will we'll sit up and take notice of. and so there's this kind of general international consensus around how government should be managed, which is a reflection of the new public management I was talking about. But there are difficulties in implementing it,

09:18 - and the difficulties usually come from, you know, opening up public sector organizations to market competition where markets might not exist. People fail to understand competition in situations where there's a high level of public sector corruption for whatever reason. So the use of contracts to deliver public services, runs into, difficulties. A lot of political corruption around, and of course resistance from the bureaucracy itself,

09:49 - basically bureaucrats and managers or human beings. And they don't like sudden rapid change that could undermine their status and authority, and expose themselves, if you like, to, to, to competition. So in Australia, for instance, they started moving, you know, senior public managers onto short term performance related contracts. and there was an argument that that would, that undermines un undermine, sorry, the, the public sector ethos that, you know, dedication

10:22 - to public service is not something that can be judged simply on, on the number of set number of outputs. very often the public sector produces things that people value, but can't always be quantified or, or reduced to, you know, an economic, calculation, new public management. And its subsequent variations, if you like, have been subject to internationalization, but they are played out very different ways in individual

10:52 - countries, countries in Southeast Asia, and on the surface, for example, you would think that Hong Kong and Singapore, very similar cases, but the way now are special administered region of China, but in those two regions, if you like, it is, is very different. And it's subject to, to local political environments and local political culture. So, you know, it's, it's not smooth, it's not straightforward.

11:16 - And the last thing I just want to add in relation to that is, just going back to the question about Europeanization, European Commission would be very conscious of this. and for countries that, wish to join the European Union or the new accession, the, the ones that have recently joined the European Union, they, they put in place twinning arrangements, to put into their bureaucracies expertise

11:41 - that would help them think about those reforms. and I've been personally involved, quite a few years ago with, a twinning arrangement between Estonia and Georgia. Georgia's not part of the European Union, but was EU aspirant at the time. Going back to the paper that we presented recently, it's because both my co-author and I are, I've taught on both MBA and MPA programs, and we've struck by the, the number of

12:13 - public sector managers that would choose to do an MBA program, but ultimately were frustrated by some of the content they felt didn't address their day-to-day concerns. You know, including, managing the political environment, understanding the policy process, you know, dealing with interest groups, things like that. yet the MBA had more so-called credibility, because of its long establishment, the, the title

12:45 - of the paper that suggests, that the, the MBA almost has a court light status. And I've seen that written about certain, you know, Ivy League American schools. We wondered, if it was possible for the MPA to, to be elevated in a similar way. And this is the implication for, for European, post experience postgraduate qualifications, that the attractiveness of an MPA program needs to be revisited and that some of the best features

13:14 - of MBA programs could well be emulated. because at the end of the day, although a functioning, thriving economy, which is managed well is very important for society, people demand and use public services as well, whether sometimes, whether they choose to or not, or whether they're aware of it or not. and so it's just as important that, government is managed just as well as business.

13:43 - so if you like, the rationale for these programs is, is pretty much the same. but we found that in some countries, the MPA is, is valued. and in other countries, not so much. So, for example, the UK we know is left the European Union, but even when we were part of the European Union, the MPA, was not particularly well valued by practicing public sector managers. and if they did go for postgraduate experience,

14:18 - they would choose sort of MBA or business type programs. Whereas in Europe, the MPA is, is, is kind of more popular. it, it's is better organized and has its own, professional accreditation, under the E-A-P-A-A. and there are no UK universities that have E-A-P-A-A accreditation. For example, plenty of MBA association of MBA accreditations, but not that. and it's to do with political cultures, it's to do with

14:50 - Status of public servants, how well they're valued. And it's particularly popular, in places like China, that see MPAs as a vehicle, if you like, for wide widespread public sector management improvement.

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