POSDCORB

POSDCORB is an acronym which means Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating,

Reporting and Budgeting which was first coined in a paper on administrative management that was
written for the Brownlow Committee by Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick. POSDCORB can be used as
a systematic framework for efficiently executing business processes in a company or by an individual.

The main conceptual framework of POSDCORB originates from an objective, logical and rational
perspective of public administration as a series of sequential functions of the government. It was thought
to be revolutionary because it was the first time that POSDCORB, a then new idea of public
administration developed in the early 1940s to view the government in terms of efficiency, effectiveness,
and also from the perspective of governance. The prompt adoption of this new model was also an
immediate result of the Great Depression (1929- 1939) and World War II (1939-1945), which both called
for the urgent need of a "military-like government" that is both responsive and effective in nature.
Although POSDCORB was later replaced by other newer ideas and concepts, the quest for a more
effective and responsive government had proved to be a very valuable beginning.

The POSDCORB formula constitutes an important stage of the development of public administration.
Here we enter into the details of the concept. In 1937 Gulick and Urwick published Papers on the Science
of Administration. Then president Franklin D Roosevelt was quite eager to make efforts for the proper
progress of public administration so that it will be able to meet the growing needs of the subject. Keeping
in mind the advice of Roosevelt, Gulick and Urwick suggested certain principles in the above-noted
Papers for public- administration so that it can administer the organisation in an effective way.

The acronym which formulates the responsibility of a chief executive or administrator stands for:
Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Direction, Coordinating, Reporting, and Budgeting. It defines the
principles as follows:

Planning:Planning is working out in broad outline the things that need .to be done and the methods for
doing them to accomplish the purpose set for the enterprise; Planning refers to the establishment a broad
draft of the work to be accomplished and the process incorporated to implement them.

Organizing: Organizing involves formally defining, synchronizing and classifying the various
subdivisions or sub-processes of the work to be done; Organizing is the establishment of the formal
structure of authority through which work subdivisions are arranged, defined and coordinated for the
defined objective;

Staffing: Staffing involves selecting and recruiting the correct applicants for the job and facilitating their
training and orientation while sustaining a promising work environment; Staffing is the whole personnel
function of bringing in and training the staff and maintaining favorable conditions of work.

Directing: Directing entails delegating structured and decision-making instructions and orders to
accomplish them. Directing is the continuous task of making decisions and embodying them in specific
and general orders and instructions and serving as the leader of the enterprise. 
Coordinating: Coordinating fundamentally refers to scoring and interspersing the many mechanisms of
the work. Coordinating is the all-important duty of interrelating the various parts of the work.

Reporting: Reporting is keeping those to whom the executive is responsible informed as to what is going
on, which thus includes keeping himself and his subordinates informed through records, research and
inspections; Reporting contains frequently updating the superior about the improvement or the work-
related doings. The information distribution can be through inspection or records.

Budgeting: Budgeting comprises of all the happenings that under Accounting, Auditing Control and
Fiscal Planning. Budgeting, with all that goes with budgeting in the form of fiscal planning, accounting
and control.

Importance of POSDCORB:

Every single business desires to have a methodical framework in confirming there is extreme output, least
expenditure, and higher boundaries. POSDCORB is a technique in management where staff and
personnel can be accomplished in a way which would be advantageous for a business. These notion
benefits organizations to break down the effort into numerous procedures and support in receiving
supreme value out to each staff. These phases and steps of this principles support the Human Resource
team to deliver to the desires of a business.

Criticisms of POSDCORB:

Early 1938, the scholar was begun giving the impression in the field of Public Administration thought-
provoking the legitimacy of POSDCORB and the notion that there could even be an inflexible set of
principles in administration. Protuberant Public Administration scholars such as Herbert Alexander
Simon, Robert Dahl, and Dwight Waldo were published articles and published books criticizing
POSDCORB and the principles concept in 1946 & 1947. Among other criticisms, Herbert Alexander
Simon statuses that it values are a simplification of administration. Herbert Alexander Simon’s criticisms
mostly center around the unity of command and span of control, stating that every so often it is
compulsory for a subordinate to take directives or guidance from more than one cause, as well as Luther
Gulick’s specialization concepts. Other disapprovals of Simon intricate that there was a lack of indication
for the POSDCORB. Yet others claim that organizations are full of diversity and are thought-provoking
to control.