Broadly speaking, there are two ways in which public agencies and private firms -- and, therefore, public and private management -- can be regarded as different. On the one hand, public agencies can be regarded as serving a higher purpose, namely the public good, rather than simply making money for someone. The phrase "public service ethos" implies such a higher purpose.

On the other hand, public agencies can be regarded as sheltered from the competitive pressures that act on private firms, and thus lacking the motivation for improving efficiency that a competitive marketplace is presumed to generate. The word "bureaucrat," with its negative connotations, encapsulates this latter distinction, in which public agencies are viewed as inherently less efficient -- and public management, at least good public management, as inherently more difficult -- than private agencies and management.

In the English-speaking nations, with their traditions of limited government and suspicion of governmental authority, the latter presumption tends to predominate, with public servants and managers not h

The argument over privatization has been carried on from many points of view, but one phenomenon that has been recently noted and identified is the "publicization" of privatized services (Sellers, 2003, p. 618). In brief, private firms that undertake to provide services previously provided by public agencies tend to take on many of the characteristics of those agencies, particularly in their sensitivity to and influence by political forces. Their operations are liable to be subjective to minute scrutiny and regulation by public authorities. This denies them much of the flexibility attributed to the private sector. It may also in practice shield them in some degree from competitive pressures, since any competitor for their contracts must accept the same degree of scrutiny and regulation.

Sheaff, R. (1997). Marketization, managers and moral strain: Chairman, directors and public service ethos in the National Health Service. Public Administration, 75, pp. 189-206.

What, however, does actual examination indicate about differences between public and private management, and the presumed greater difficulties of the former? One study (Boyne, 2002) considered a variety of widely argued differences between public and private management. These differences can be distinguished as external differences, resulting from the environment in which public agencies operate, and internal differences, resulting from the structure of public agencies.

Select Committee on Public Administration (2002). Seventh Report: The Public Ethos. London: HMSO.