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Academic Library System

Notes

Did u know? In a centralized organization, the decisions are made by top executives or
on the basis of pre-set policies. These decisions or policies are then enforced
through several tiers of the organization after gradually broadening the
span of control until it reaches the bottom tier.

In a more decentralized organization, the top executives delegate much of their decision-
making authority to lower tiers of the organizational structure. As a correlation, the organization
is likely to run on less rigid policies and wider spans of control among each officer of the
organization. The wider spans of control also reduce the number of tiers within the organization,
giving its structure a flat appearance. One advantage of this structure, if the correct controls
are in place, will be the bottom-to-top flow of information, allowing decisions by officials of
the organization to be well informed about lower tier operations. For example, if an experienced
technician at the lowest tier of an organization knows how to increase the efficiency of the
production, the bottom-to-top flow of information can allow this knowledge to pass up to the
executive officers.

Political Decentralization

Political decentralization aims to give citizens or their elected representatives more power in
public decision-making. It is often associated with pluralistic politics and representative government,
but it can also support democratization by givingcitizens, or their representatives, more influence
in the formulation and implementation of policies. Advocates of political decentralization
assume that decisions made with greater participation will be better informed and more relevant
to diverse interests in society than those made only by national political authorities. The
concept implies that the selection of representatives from local electoral constituency allows
citizens to know better their political representatives and allows elected officials to know
better the needs and desires of their constituents. Political decentralization often requires
constitutional or statutory reforms, creation of local political units, and the encouragement of
effective public interest groups.

Administrative Decentralization

Administrative decentralization seeks to redistribute authority, responsibility and financial
resources for providing public services among different levels of governance. It is the transfer
of responsibility for the planning, financing and management of public functions from the
central government or regional governments and its agencies to local governments, semi-
autonomous public authorities or corporations, or area-wide, regional or functional authorities.
The three major forms of administrative decentralization—deconcentration, delegation, and
devolution—each have different characteristics.

Deconcentration

Deconcentration is the weakest form of decentralization and is used most frequently in unitary
states—redistributes decision-making authority and financial and management responsibilities
among different levels of the national government. It can merely shift responsibilities from
central government officials in the capital city to those working in regions, provinces or districts,
or it can create strong field administration or local administrative capacity under the supervision
of central government ministries.

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