Management culture as an imperative of social transformations in Ukraine

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Management culture as an imperative of social transformations in Ukraine

Perzhun Volodymyr Vasylovych,

Candidate of Sociological Sciences (PhD in Sociology),

Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies

Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University, Doctoral Student

The National Academy of Public Administration

Key words: managerial culture, public administration, public administration, transformations, society, changes, managerial activity.

УПРАВЛІНСЬКА КУЛЬТУРА ЯК ІМПЕРАТИВ СУСПІЛЬНИХ ТРАНСФОРМАЦІЙ В УКРАЇНІ

Дослідження, присвячені аналізу управлінської культури, в яких визначається, що вона постає як державно-управлінський феномен, дозволяють стверджувати про її роль і значення в трансформаційних змінах, що продовжуються в Україні й зачіпають також державне управління.

Нині досить актуальними залишаються проблеми державного (публічного) управління. Успішно сформована належна управлінська культура як стратегічна ознака державної управлінської діяльності своїми дієвими можливостями складає деяку модель, яка має безпосереднє відношення до процесів поступового переходу від державного управління до управління публічного. Основними завданнями такого переходу, на наш погляд, мають бути такі складові частини: внутрішнє, особисте усвідомлення державних управлінців, публічних службовців, менеджерів різного рівня своєї відповідальності в управлінні; усвідомлення влади, політичної еліти, громадянського суспільства зі своєї національно-громадянської ідентичності; просвітницька й соціально-гуманітарна діяльність у проблемах становлення єдиної політичної нації; вироблення передумов для впровадження в життя довіри до державних органів влади, інститутів громадянського суспільства, місцевого самоврядування, політичних партій; ефективна й дієва боротьба з корупцією; внутрішня індивідуальна й колективна готовність до зміни пріоритетів у структурі управління державними й суспільними справами. Належне місце в такому процесі має посідати демократична управлінська культура управлінців різних рівнів і рангів та її практичне використання в управлінській діяльності. Отже, управлінська культура уявляється як самодостатній феномен державного управління, управління організаціями й колективами, управління людськими ресурсами тощо, який сприятиме вдосконаленню структури й механізмів складної системи державного й суспільного будівництва. public administration managerial culture

Ключові слова: управлінська культура, державне управління, публічне управління, трансформації, суспільство, зміни, управлінська діяльність.

In 1996, there was published the book “The Transforming Society” of Ye. Golovakha, a well-known Ukrainian scientist, Deputy Director of the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. A quarter of a century has passed since then, and the Ukrainian society remains a society in a state of transformation, as no significant, radical, positive changes have taken place. Let's try to analyze the consequences of this situation in the ongoing transformation of the Ukrainian society and how the management culture can affect social change in general, as well as what is necessary for the transformation to move into a civilized progress of the state and society.

- the first - institutional changes in Ukraine in 1991-1994 and their artificial delay;

- the second - the imperfection of the institutional system of 1995-1999, which embodied the emergence and formation of the oligarchy, mafia structures, the shadow economy, which were closely linked to power and politics;

- the third - the brewing of the institutional crisis of the late 90s of the 20th century and the “Orange Revolution” of 2004;

- the fourth - the political struggle ofthe “orange”, “post-revolutionary” unfulfilled expectations and as a result - complete disappointment of the society in 2005-2010;

- the fifth - some uncertainty of the political elite and the government, and further new socio-political risks for the society and the state in the period 20112013;

- the sixth - the deepening of transformation, the conflict between the government and some part of the society, the “Revolution of Dignity” and its repercussion in 2014-2016;

- the seventh - the beginning of the “declared transit” from 2017 to the present day.

In this regard, we note one characteristic thing that was inherent in at least six stages of the transformation processes and is largely manifested today - the immaturity of a new, democratic management culture of that time (as well as majority of today's) politicians, government officials, managers, civil servants etc. There were both objective and subjective reasons for this. Among the objective ones we note: unexpectedness and incomprehensibility of those radical social changes that began after the collapse of the USSR for a large part of the society; lack of trained political and economic elite; there was no awareness that huge socio-economic, material, financial and socio-cultural problems were possible; historical consequences of the communist system and what are the possible ways to overcome them, etc. The subjective reasons can include the vision and belief of the vast majority of that time party and government leadership, especially in the early 90's, to maintain the old system of government; unsuccessful privatization reforms that did not lead to the civilized privatization, but to “seizure and the so-called prikhvatization (neologism which means illegal privatization)”; merger of big business and politics, power and economy; that time elite's internal rejection of everything which is new and progressive; old thinking; vigilance to national, democratic and spiritual values; the state leadership does not have a clear plan of strategic actions in the conditions of independence; old methods, forms and styles of management, etc. All this had a negative effect on the socio-economic and political progress of Ukraine, which could not completely free itself from the post-Soviet traditions. They also affect the current stage of public administration, as we mostly have decades-long elite, the same politicians and their political forces for many years, the rejection of democratic, civilized governance styles, etc. And even if relatively young people come to power, they are those who have not previously been involved in politics, public administration, without the experience, knowledge, skills and abilities for such a difficult job. And hence we often observe clumsy decisions, actions, decrees and resolutions relating to public administration, socio-political, economic and cultural processes.

Thus, as Ye. Golovakha aptly writes, “the consequence of the forced post-Soviet transformation in the first two decades of Ukraine's independence was the existence of a continuous “drama of uncertainty”, culminating in Yanukovych's refusal to reach agreements with the European Union and an attempt to stop protests” [3, p. 28]. After the events of the “Revolution of Dignity”, new challenges arose. These are the deepening of the regional division of the Ukrainian society, the annexation of the Ukrainian Crimea by the Russian Federation, the war in Donbas, daily difficult socio-economic situation of the vast majority of the population, growing distance between the rich and poor, the lack of effective reforms, decline of spiritual and moral values, etc.

A significant factor in the ongoing transformational changes is the reform of public administration. The first thing that representatives of public administration, local government officials, and public servants should understand is an internal, personal awareness of their responsibility in management. The second is the painstaking work of politicians, the government, the national elite, and ultimately the entire Ukrainian society on the issues of their national and civic identity, the gradual formation of a single political nation. Further, there must be the development of conditions for the implementation of effective public confidence in public authorities, civil society institutions, local governments, political parties and their leaders. The next step is the fight against corruption, which has taken over all spheres of life of the state and society. And another, extremely important and difficult task is the inner readiness to change priorities in the structure of social and spiritual values. In such a work, of course, the formation of management culture and its practical use in management takes an important place. After all, the formed positive management culture with its properties and qualities will help to reform the old system of government, which was and, to some extent, continues to be a tracing paper not only of “Soviet” but also feudal social system” [67, p. 29], when one person or a small group of people can decide, manage, shape the future, control, punish, pardon, etc.

Today in Ukraine there are still influential forces that do not need high-quality effective reforms of the system of public administration and local self-government. Surprisingly, this is not only and not so much an external enemy and external processes, but, most of all, an internal enemy and internal problems that must be solved, because their non-solution will push Ukraine even further to the sidelines of history. In our opinion, such problems that need to be considered as a matter of priority include:

- introduction of the principle of social mobility on the basis of which public administration reform should take place, when effective managers are appointed to the main basic managerial positions, who do not put their personal interests above the state and public ones. The key word here is effective, i.e. professionally trained, competent, responsible, which have vocation, as M. Weber pointed out, to management work. But we continue to appoint to state and administrative positions by means of protection, bribes, family or friendly relations, belonging to a particular party, etc.;

- formation and further development of the middle class as the basis of successful socio-economic, political, managerial, business and socio-cultural progress of the state and society, providing significant assistance to small and medium-sized businesses. If the middle class is successful, then the state is successful. This is an axiom that needs no proof;

- political will and practical real steps of the government to develop new social standards in public policy in the field of medicine, education and science, culture, which are now funded on a residual basis. Finally, more attention should be paid to humanitarian policy in general, education, moral and spiritual values;

- implementation of effective and efficient public control, i.e. “external restriction of arbitrariness, selective justice and elite greed” [3, p. 30];

- intensification of work on the formation of the principles of managerial culture, starting with the president, his office, parliamentarians, the executive branch and ending with local government officials and public servants of various ranks;

- work to create truly ideological parties that would defend the interests and rights of certain social groups, categories of the population, their electorate, because today they represent and protect the oligarchic clans, their leaders, themselves.

It should be noted that during the period of social transformations the majority of the Ukrainian society, in contrast to the political elite, government, high-ranking officials, etc. was very clear on systemic and structural changes in both internal and, in part, external policy. This position of the Ukrainian society also concerns public administration, i.e. people demand its reform on the principles of openness, transparency, effective cooperation between civil society and the state, want to see a competent, tolerant, responsible, patient public servant who is attentive to citizens etc. It would be correct to believe that in this respect, society is ahead of the government, managers, politicians, who should, in fact, be at the forefront of these changes. But as a matter of fact, on the contrary - they trail far behind. To this day, civil society, which is more or less beginning to self-organize when it sees the inaction of the authorities, holds many peaceful protests. In doing so, it seeks to show the authorities, state institutions, politicians, and ultimately the national elite that the time for radical change has come, and they must provide the appropriate socio-economic and political field for such reforms. However, so far, the government and its institutions either do not respond to the demands of society at all, or respond inadequately, only imitating the work. And such blatant neglect of the s ociety can lead to uncontrolled chaos and the transition from peaceful protests to violence.

Here are some empirical data that represent the expectations of citizens who were at the beginning of the 2019 presidential election. They show their expectations and, at the same time, how the government reacts to the socio-political phenomena and events that take place in the conditions of transformation. Most hopes were placed on the newly elected President V. Zelensky - 63.0% of respondents rated his actions as positive; 13.0% - the assessment was negative; 24.0% answered that they have not yet decided and it is difficult for them to say [3, p. 17]. It should be emphasized here that the vast majority of regions of Ukraine determined their position in this way.

In this regard, we want to draw a parallel with the events of the early presidential elections in 2014, when there were also high expectations from the new government. But, after some time, in 2018, the all-Ukrainian sociological survey conducted jointly by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Razumkov Center Sociological Service showed results that were almost the main reason for Poroshenko's defeat. Among the most painful and important problems for the citizens of Ukraine, which were never solved by that time state authorities, the respondents named: the war in the East - 70.0%; rising prices and low wages - 50.0%; monthly growth of utility payments - 39.0%; uncertainty in the future - 39.0%; high level of corruption - 31.0% [3, p. 12]. We are convinced that the same mistakes are made by today's public administration and they lead to disappointment of the society with the government, managers, and current politicians. Therefore, seeing such a state, civil society self-organizes and holds protests, which are, for the time being, constitutional, but may grow into more cardinal ones, as we wrote above.

Understanding and interpreting the management culture as a social and state phenomenon that has an impact on the processes of social transformation, it is interesting to consider such a direction of transformation as a European choice for further progress of Ukraine as a state. It should be stated that not all Ukrainian society, including some civil servants, government officials, politicians, managers, etc. are for such a vector of development. But every year more and more citizens support the European choice. If in 2016 there were 48.0% (which is also a lot), then in 2019 their number increased to 58.8% [5, p. 53].

The numbers are certainly convincing, but the real situation is somewhat different. And it depends largely on the level of management culture of public administration, as well as local government officials. Such a transformation (or rather modernization) depends on the success of the reforms that our European partners want to see in our country. And they (reforms) are either not carried out at all, or are not systemic or effective. Here is how Ukrainian sociologist L. Bevzenko, one of the researchers of the processes of social transformations, describes this state of affairs: “If we state that our country is in such a state, then reaching the desired transformation towards Europe requires sharp and sometimes painful changes. They can be spontaneous - spontaneous-revolutionary, and can have a nature of reforms, but also deep and significant. The latter is difficult to do, because there are risks of public protests in the absence of filigree management” [1, p. 56]. The key phrase in her statement is “filigree management”. Thus, without professional and competent management (public management) the main component of which is the management culture, the implementation of effective reforms is impossible.

It is worth noting another point. These are the problems of corruption in Ukraine. Among the most important tasks of successful, effective, productive development and managerial transformations in our society is an anti-corruption reform, 55.0% of respondents insist on it [5, p. 60].

Thus, unfortunately, we lost our evolutionary, gradual, but civilized way of transition from “neo-feudalism”, difficult social transformations to successful modernizations at the dawn of independence, unlike other post-socialist and Baltic states. Todaywe need changes, and above all, public administration which, in fact, effective, efficient, competent and radical reforms of the societydepend on. It is in such processes that an important role is given to the formation of management culture and awareness of its values for management in the conditions of transformation. It is not the formal, declarative, populist convergence of our legislation and our values with European ones that should come to the fore, but the change of everyday life, the gradual approach to welfare state, when the focus is put on the person, citizen, collective as the main social capital. It is not easy to go this way, but it is vital and will depend on effective and professional management and creativity of civil society. Moreover, civil society itself is a kind of barrier, a guarantee, the point of noreturn to the old methods and styles of public administration. After all, the success of management, its effectiveness today is mainly determined by such characteristics of management culture as: intelligence, erudition, deep knowledge, ability to quickly navigate and analyze the situation, sociability, healthy critical attitude to themselves and others, responsibility, hostility to corruption, moral and spiritual values, etc. These qualities of managerial culture should be most characteristic of top state managers, managers, politicians, public figures, public servants, and local government officials.

Public administration of the modern period has become “dependent” on transglobalization processes, which, whether we like it or not, affect almost all spheres of life: administrative, political, social, cultural, religious, technological, every day, etc. What is more, managerial culture as a component of the general social culture also changes and acquires new, unique features, inherent just to it. There can be pointed out cultural and managerial competence, which embodies a head-manager capable of making key decisions independently; effective modern crisis top managers who are ready for practical solutions to difficult and problematic tasks and situations; broad outlook and professionalism; tolerance and high moral and ethical principles; non-professional competence means certain and sufficient knowledge and skills not only purely managerial, but also humanitarian and behavioral.

And the last thing worth mentioning when studying managerial culture within the framework of social transformations and what impact it can have on the work of managers, politicians, public servants, local government officials is the socio-political situation in Ukraine, citizens' attitude to it and, in fact, the place and role of management culture in these processes.

At the end of 2019, the experts from the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, researching and assessing the socio-political situation in Ukraine provided the following results: 60.4% of respondents considered the socio-political situation in Ukraine difficult and tense [4, p. 43].

At that time, respondents also believed, and this is 50.9%, that there are political leaders in the country who have all the opportunities for successful leadership of the country. At the same time, 22.3% do not see such politicians; 21.8% of them are convinced that the situation in the state and society is tense and such tensions will increase, and 41.6% of respondents generally thought that it was on the verge of a social explosion [4, p. 44]. Managers also wondered who negatively influences the reform of our spheres of life. Here are the answers received by researchers: regular Ukrainian politicians who have been in power for a long time, or somewhere close to it (57.1%); oligarchs, big business (35.8%), local government officials (28.0%); representatives of various international financial organizations - the IMF (International Monetary Fund), the World Bank, etc. (24.6%) [4, p. 44].

In addition, of interest are the answers of the respondents regarding their trust or distrust in public administration and local self-government bodies, which have been working in unstable transformational conditions for years. Thus, in 2019, the President of Ukraine (V. Zelensky) was not trusted at all - 10.1% of respondents; completely trusted - 12.0%. Compared to 2018, when Poroshenko was President, there are quite significant differences: 39.2% of respondents did not trust at all; completely trusted - only 0.6% [6, p. 460].

Regarding the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine - 19.0% of respondents answered that they do not trust it at all, and 1.8% that they completely trust it. For 2018, the indicators were as follows: 43.4% did not trust it at all, and only 0.3% completely trusted it [6, p. 461].

Regarding trust or not trust in the Government of Ukraine, in 2019 there were the following data: 18.9% did not trust it at all, 2.1% completely trusted it. In 2018, the indicators were as follows: 42.5% did not trust it at all, only 0.5% trusted it completely [6, p. 461].

As for the local governments, the researchers obtained the following results. In 2019, 16.9% did not trust local governments at all, and 2.5% completely trusted them. In 2018, these figures were 24.8% and 1.3% respectively [6, p. 462].

Now let's take into account the confidence in political parties, as our politics and government are closely linked. In 2019 23.8% of respondents did not trust political parties at all and 1.2% trusted them completely. Compared to 2018, the differences are not so significant: 38.2% and 0.4% respectively [6, p. 463].

Analyzing the data of this study, it can be stated that at the beginning of 2019 the vast majority of Ukrainian citizens were sharply dissatisfied with public administration, especially with regard to internal policy. Hence the election results, when not very experienced in management and political terms “Servants of the People”, but young and promising, as it seemed to voters, won the election first presidential and then to the Verkhovna Rada. It was the failure of the social reforms of the previous government and the fact that a large part of the people remained poor, as well as the ongoing war in Donbass that contributed to the victory of V. Zelensky and the party “Servant of the People”.

Thus, for the successful practical implementation of reforming the life of the Ukrainian society in the transformation process it is very important for managers at various levels, politicians, civil servants, local government officials and business managers, etc. to understand the relevance of forming positive qualities and characteristics of management culture, the ability to take risks, if necessary, and this risk is justified; to constantly try to present and use new ideas in their work; not to be afraid of mistakes, because only those who do nothing make no mistakes; to build a leader; to develop and apply innovative technologies in management together with the team; to believe in the success of their tasks and goals; to learn to acquire new knowledge and really look at problem situations whose solution depends on professional management, etc. Hence it can be stated that today a real challenge for government officials, especially public ones, there are requirements based on a positive management culture: to be strong and strong-willed, but not defiant and cynical; always behave well and politely, but not to be weak and exhausted; to be brave in work and everyday life, but not to intimidate anyone; to be balanced, thoughtful, but not lazy and sluggish; to be easy-going, accessible, tolerant to citizens, but not proud, arrogant and haughty; to try to be spiritually rich, responsible, with a sense of healthy humor, but not rude and not be inaccessible to ordinary people; to have a sense of distance, but at the same time a sense of personal dignity. Such qualitative features of managerial culture need to be taught and formed, and this is a field for energetic activity of scientists, educators, representatives of art and culture, advanced intelligentsia, Church, people in general who make up the gene pool of the Ukrainian ethnicity and creative, most active part of the Ukrainian civil society.

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