Sborník 2009 díl 2. - Fakulta informatiky a managementu - Univerzita ...

PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS AND THEIR ROLE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF
REGIONS
Renata Przygodzka
University in Bialystok
r.przygodzka@uwb.edu.pl
Key words:
Public organizations – public goods and services – development of region
Abstract:
The article, based on an analysis of the specific characteristic of public organizations,
which is their public ness, makes an attempt to explain the role of such organizations in
region's development. The conducted analysis allowed separating three key areas, in
which public organizations have an important role to play. These are: management of
the region and its development, providing goods and public services as well as
connected to both: building the region's competitive advantage.
Introduction
Public organizations play a greater and greater role in shaping the bases for society's
development. It is the quintessence of imperfection of the market mechanism, in
particular occurrence of public goods and external effects. Providing public goods and
services, the production of which the private sector does not deal in, has presently
become the domain of the state, which acts mainly through its organization 1 . Their
peculiarity is the fact that they are financed above all from public financial means, and
their special characteristic, which discriminates these organizations from among the
others, is their public nature.
The purpose of the article is to show that public organizations, due to their special
nature, have significant influence of the development of the region. The article has been
prepared based on literature studies and with the use of descriptive analysis. In order to
explain the role of public organizations, functional analysis has been additionally
adopted.
Public organizations, their specificity and tasks
Public organizations are usually defined as a complex whole, with qualities
characteristic of all organizations, albeit differing from them in terms of the specific set
of goals and values, which in turn affects the difference of the inter-organizational
bonds and relation with the external environment p6, p. 83]. Generally, specificity of
public organizations is related with their special quality, which is organizational
publicness.
1 According to the development schematics proposed by R. Rose: "the state begins, which certain
definition functions, such as defense, collecting taxes are executed, then they are supplemented by
functions of resources' promotion (roads, canals, railways, etc.) and finally, by social functions” [10, p.
251].
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