The King County Library System Case Study

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The King County Library System is the fifth largest library system in circulation in the United States. The current director of the KCLS, Bill Ptacek, started with the organization three years ago and is in the process of working towards a new strategic plan titled "The Year 2000 Plan, which has a long-term goal of integrating all the resources of the library system equally and to coordinate all the efforts to ensure it was providing the best possible service to the community. In the three years, Ptacek worked to expand the mission to cover services for the community to include children, life-long learning, career development, and literacy (Chell, 1996, pg.2). The reworking of the mission and services of KCLS was in full swing, but there were …show more content…

40). Public service motivation is a crucial component in public administration and nonprofits due to the nature and mission of these organizations. In the case study, the King County Library System did foster PSM through hiring the right people dedicated to their jobs, but they failed to promote it throughout the organization by providing further training and education and clarifying goals and empowering …show more content…

The Service Center’s relationship between departments and their respective managers were strained and lacked successful communication. All the departments have drastically different issues and were unable to come together to make joint decisions for the greater good of the organization.
“It’s not surprising that there’s distrust and a lack of communication among managers.” Outside DAC meetings, we rarely work together,” said one DAC member. “There’s been no attempt at team building, and with eight managers with widely varying management styles, we’re bound to step on each other’s toes” (Chell, 1996, pg. 12). In order to further foster public service motivation, the King County Library System requires the right structure to promote team building between the DAC and the branches and within the DAC itself. To become a high-performing team, The DAC must commit themselves by developing a common commitment to working relationships (Bolman & Deal, 2013, pg. 108). In order to come together, they must find the common ground they are

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