Question

Public Management Class

PMIA Airport is the gateway to Madinah. Millions of passengers use our terminals each year - 24 hours a day, seven days a week - to connect with people and places across the world. As many as 4,000 people work at the airport each day and thousands of more jobs are indirectly linked to its operation and growth. We aim to provide the best airport operations services that meet the highest global standards and the customers’ various needs. It is the fourth busiest airport in Saudi Arabia, handling 6,572,787 passengers in 2016, including 719,638 Hajj charter and 818,092 Umrah charter passengers.

Already we have achieved success in further improving the world-class facilities we offer at Madinah Airport. The new Hajj Terminal and 6 state-of-the art Hajj Pavilions, top-notch food outlets, and world-class duty-free shops are perfect examples of this passenger focused approach. However, we need to go even further. In the year ahead we will continue to introduce new ways of providing services and products that will ensure the time our passengers spend with us is quality time.

Already we have achieved success in further improving the world-class facilities we offer at Madinah Airport. The new Hajj Terminal and 6 state-of-the art Hajj Pavilions, top-notch food outlets, and world-class duty-free shops are perfect examples of this passenger focused approach. However, we need to go even further. In the year ahead we will continue to introduce new ways of providing services and products that will ensure the time our passengers spend with us is quality time.

As we look to the future at PMIA we are doing so with a clear vision in mind. This year we will position ourselves better to achieve that vision: to be a world-class airport and the preferred choice for passengers, airlines, business and the community. How do we intend to achieve this? Through collaborative relationships, innovation and service excellence.

The PMIA management has hired you as manager operations. You have to manage the entire airport operation. You have to manage the inflow and outflow of passengers, the employees, and other resource facilities.

1.“A budget tells us what we can’t afford, but it doesn’t keep us from buying it.” Public Budgeting is an important activity of Public Manager. How will you define Public Budgeting at PMIA? Discuss the Budgeting Process     

                                               

2.“Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one,
be without strategy.” What could be the possible influence of Power on PMIA Leadership?                                                                                            

3.Discuss the various benefits of Technology on administration of PMIA. Identify the role of Knowledge Management on at PMIA.              

Answer 1

Through the Pooled Money Investment Account (PMIA), the State Treasurer invests taxpayers’ money to manage the State’s cash flow and strengthen the financial security of local governmental entities. PMIA policy sets as primary investment objectives safety, liquidity and yield. The PMIA has three primary sources of funds: the State general fund; special funds held by State agencies; and moneys deposited by cities, counties and other entities into the Local Agency Investment Fund (LAIF).

Public budgeting is a field of public administration and a discipline in the academic study thereof. Budgeting is characterized by its approaches, functions, formation, and type.

Three values are generally discussed in the literature of public budgeting: accountability, efficiency, and efficacy.

Accountability focuses on the inputs going into the system or program in action and is best characterized by the line-item budgeting approach. It is best suited for the control and monitoring functions of a budget.

Efficiency focuses on the process of the system or program and its conversion of inputs (resources) into outputs (policy). Its focus on the process makes this value appropriate for performance budgets and most in-line with management and steering functions.

Efficacy focuses on outputs and outcomes, measuring the impact of policy. This value follows both the program budget and PPBS budget approaches and coincides with the planning and strategic brokering functions.

Typically, the budget cycles occurs in four phases.^[17] The first requires policy planning and resource analysis and includes revenue estimation. The second phase is referred to as policy formulation and includes the negotiation and planning of the budget formation. The third phase is policy execution which follows budget adoption is budget execution—the implementation and revision of budgeted policy. The fourth phase encompasses the entire budget process, but is considered its fourth phase. This phase is auditing and evaluating the entire process and system. See the associated points below:

• Revenue Estimation performed in the executive branch by the finance director, clerk's office, budget director, manager, or a team.
• Budget Call issued to outline the presentation form, recommend certain goals.
• Budget Formulation reflecting on the past, set goals for the future and reconcile the difference.
• Budget Hearings can include departments, sections, the executive, and the public to discuss changes in the budget.
• Budget Adoption final approval by the legislative body.
• Budget Execution amending the budget as the fiscal year progresses.

• Types of public budgets[edit]

• Operating budgets are those documents that describe the expenditures and revenues during a given period for the functioning of an organization.
• Capital budgeting is the process of planning for future purchases above a certain cost threshold or extended life span. This budget is typically accompanied by a capital improvement plan that describes a timeline for acquisition and payment of debt.

2.

Influence and Leadership

There can be no leadership without influence, because influencing is how leaders lead. In their classic book on leadership, Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge, Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus echo this point: "There is a profound difference between management and leadership," they wrote, "and both are important. 'To manage' means 'to bring about, to accomplish, to have charge of or responsibility for, to conduct.' 'Leading' is 'influencing, guiding in direction, course, action, opinion.'" They add that "an essential factor in leadership is the capacity to influence."

Managers also use influence, of course, because only a fraction of managerial work can actually be accomplished through control and the use of authority. The aim of both managers and leaders is to accomplish an organization's goals. Managers do it through plans, organization, processes, task assignments, measurements, and so on, but they must also direct people and manage their performance, and you can't manage people solely through command-and-control methods. People are human beings, not machines, mechanical parts, or assembly lines. They respond best when they are treated like human beings, they work best when they have a voice in how the work is done, and they remain loyal and engaged when they feel respected, trusted, well informed, and cared for. That's why the best managers also lead, and they lead through the social and emotional approaches to influencing, not just the rational approaches.

Leaders lead by mobilizing people around a compelling vision of the future, by inspiring them to follow in the leader's footsteps. They show people what's possible and motivate them to make those possibilities real. They energize and focus people in ways that fulfill their dreams, give them a sense of purpose, and leave them with a profound sense of accomplishment when the work is done. Leaders lead by modeling ways of thinking or acting and by encouraging new ways of looking at situations, and by so doing they give people the words and the courage to make those new ways their own. The best leaders are teachers, mentors, and role models--and they accomplish the vast majority of their work through influence, not authority.

In many cases, leaders and managers are one in the same. The division vice president who leads a team of people to accomplish what they might not have thought possible is also a manager. The manager who oversees a team's task performance but also looks after the team members' career planning and coaches them on developing their skills is also a leader. The art of management and leadership is to know when to act as a manager and when to act as a leader, when to use authority and when to use influence, when to ask and when to tell, when to take over and when to let go. In every case, it is crucial for leaders and managers to understand the range of influence techniques they can use, know when and how to use them, build their power bases so that they have the capacity to be influential, and sharpen their skills so that they can influence people effectively.

3.

knowledge management is fundamentally about making the right knowledge or the right knowledge sources (including people) available to the right people at the right time. Knowledge sharing is therefore perhaps the single most important aspect in this process, since the vast majority of KM initiatives depend upon it. Knowledge sharing can be described as either push or pull.The latter is when the knowledge worker actively seeks out knowledge sources (e.g. library search, seeking out an expert, collaborating with a coworker etc.), while knowledge push is when knowledge is "pushed onto" the user (e.g. newsletters, unsolicited publications, etc).

Knowledge sharing depends on the habit and willingness of the knowledge worker to seek out and/or be receptive to these knowledge sources. The right culture, incentives, and so on must therefore be present.

Explicit Knowledge and Knowledge Sharing

Successful explicit knowledge sharing is determined by the following criteria (Bukowitz and Williams 1999):

• Articulation: The ability of the user to define what he needs.
• Awareness: Awareness of the knowledge available. The provider is encouraged to make use of directories, maps, corporate yellow pages, etc.
• Access: Access to the knowledge.
• Guidance: Knowledge managers are often considered key in the build-up of a knowledge sharing system (Davenport & Prusak 2000, Gamble & Blackwell 2001). They must help define the areas of expertise of the members of the firm, guide their contributions, assist users, and be responsible for the language used in publications and other communication material. This is so as to avoid an information/knowledge overload.
• Completeness: Access to both centrally managed and self-published knowledge. The former is often more scrutinized but takes longer to publish and is not as hands-on (and potentially relevant). Self-published information on the other hand runs the risk of not being as reliable.
• To facilitate knowledge sharing, KM must understand the requirements of the users, as well as the complexities and potential problems with managing knowledge and knowledge sources. Very broadly speaking, management must therefore implement the right processes, frameworks, and systems that enable knowledge sharing. They must also foster a knowledge sharing culture that ensures that these investments are fully utilized.

• For explicit knowledge, seven issues have been identified that KM must consider, these are: articulation, awareness, access, guidance, completeness. IT has been identified as a key component of this type of knowledge sharing, facilitating and lowering the cost of the storage, access, retrieval, and variety of explicit knowledge.

  Tacit knowledge sharing depends on socialization and practice. KM must offer the means for this to take place by providing the right forums (primarily physical, but also virtual), supporting networks and communities, and accepting unstructured work environments. Generalists, known as knowledge managers, should be used to gain an understanding of the location of knowledge sources and to bridge the gaps between communities and networks.

  In order to support the transfer of tacit knowledge, KMS must support the socialization functions, while at the same time not enforcing strict managerial practices/routines/hierarchies/etc. One of its roles is as an expert finder, and it can also help in the direct transfer of tacit knowledge through the support of rich and varied methods of communication, which preferably include informal communication channels.

  Embedded knowledge sharing is a process whereby embedded knowledge is passed on from one product, routine, or process to another. Several tools have been described that can help management understand the effects of embedded knowledge and help in its transfer. These were: scenario planning, after action reviews, and management training.