Comparing public and private organizations of Armenia: issues on goal-complexity and ambiguity and job satisfaction

Abstract

This study compares public and private organizations of Armenia and reveals the differences as well as similarities between them in regard to several key issues like goal complexity and job satisfaction, motivation and others. The study is based on research article “Comparing Public and Private Organizations: Empirical Research and the Power of the A Priori” by Rainey and Bozeman (2000). Rainey and Bozeman assess several major streams in the research comparing public and private organizations over the last two decades, which as the authors state: “in some ways refute widely held a priori assumptions about similarities and differences between public and private organizations but which in some ways support such assumptions.” In their article, Rainey and Bozeman sort out the similarities and the differences of public and private organizations. Their analysis has important implications for major theoretical and practical issues like privatization of public services; administrative reforms and the theoretical and practical analysis of major administrative topics, such as organizational goals, individual motivation and work attitudes etc. The aim of this study is to contribute to the formation of similar theoretical and practical issues in the newly formed public administration system of the independent Republic of Armenia. Rainey and Bozeman focus on goal complexity and goal ambiguity; organizational structure; personnel and purchasing processes and work-related attitudes and values, like work satisfaction, motivation, valuation of rewards, and work outcomes. This research concentrates mainly on comparing issues like goal complexity and goal ambiguity and work-related attitudes and values, like work satisfaction, motivation and valuation of rewards in the public and private sectors. This study has revealed a number of conflicting and mixed results. Some of the key results that this research has yielded are the following. Public agencies of Armenia experience more, though not very large amount of influence from outside, more political interventions, than the private ones. The employees of the public organizations accept that they appease many parties whiles making a decision and that they are undergoing much influence on their organizations from outside. But they say that it does not complicate the goals of their organizations at all and does not make them ambiguous. The study also reveals that employees in both sectors, public and private prefer financial rewards more than non-pecuniary motivation. This study has shown that generally managers are satisfied with their jobs, non-managers are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with their current job, and that they are more eager to change jobs. In public organizations non-managers are more satisfied with their jobs, but still they would change their jobs if they could make more money. These results in some way support the existing research findings that exist in public administration domain. There is much empirical evidence in literature that yield the same results as this study has done, and vice versa there are some that witness opposite findings.