The Impact of Eliminating Government Bureaucracy on Enhancing Institutional Excellence: The United Arab Emirates as a Model

Abstract

With the emergence of many changes in administrative concepts over the past two decades, the focus has shifted from traditional management to leadership and entrepreneurship. These changes have extended to include the quality of outputs and performance levels, eventually encompassing organizational structures in order to confront challenges, strengthen capabilities, and enhance institutional performance. Quality and institutional excellence experts identify several drivers and reasons that compel organizations to move toward institutional excellence, foremost among them rapid changes, unexpected developments, and natural disasters. Zero bureaucracy refers to the removal or significant reduction of routine administrative procedures and obstacles within institutions, with the aim of simplifying processes, improving efficiency, accelerating the completion of transactions, and facilitating access to services. This approach focuses on eliminating unnecessary complexities in administrative work, reducing red tape, and adopting flexible and fast administrative methods to meet the needs of employees and service recipients. “Zero bureaucracy” represents a step toward global leadership in institutional excellence and contributes to achieving a qualitative shift in the style of government administration. Institutional excellence is an important advantage in the business environment, as managers and employees view excellence as an effective entry point for creating competitive advantages that provide customers with high-quality products and services. Through human capital, organizations can achieve institutional differentiation by motivating employees and building high-level skills. These are the fundamental components for increasing innovation, improving performance, and supporting a culture of continuous improvement, as well as training, qualifying, and providing professional development opportunities. This reflects the importance of specific skills and their high level of proficiency. Institutional differentiation stems from the knowledge possessed by employees, as it constitutes the core of the work carried out by excellent organizations. This knowledge is unique to the organization and not shared by others, as it is the result of individual efforts by employees. Institutionally excellent organizations are characterized by several key attributes, most notably their acceptance of hard work, which is considered one of the most important sources of institutional excellence. Hard work provides organizations with opportunities for learning, rapid growth, and process improvement. It also requires competent leadership, as qualified leadership plays a prominent role in encouraging excellence and enduring challenges. Challenges reveal levels of organizational capability, contributing to the prevention of errors, the identification and management of crises, and the differentiation of organizational capacities. Excellent organizations possess sufficient experience in serving the community and have training programs that contribute to institutional excellence. They are also accurate in forecasting through selecting the best methods for task performance. An excellent organization is further characterized by its continuity in applying global best practices in performing its tasks, maintaining supportive and interactive relationships with its customers and stakeholders, and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of competitors. Such an environment works to develop programs that enhance learning resources and strengthen employee skills in various areas, including newly acquired skills that add to their professional value and enable them to cooperate more effectively with the business units in which they work.