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Top-down and bottom-up approaches or theories of program implementation

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Top-down and bottom-up approaches or theories of program implementation

The Historical Arguments

     In businesses, governments, schools, hospitals, and other human establishments, the execution

of required mandates and tasks is made possible either through top-down or bottom-up

approaches. The validity of these two options in program implementation and whether there are

one-fits-all arguments for these theories is also a matter of concern in research. In pandemic

situations such as the COVID-19 outbreak caused by the coronavirus, a top-down approach must

be implemented and mixed with bottom-up techniques to ensure successful program

implementation in the form of effective interventions. 

Top-down Program Implementation

     Top-down program implementation is the more common approach, also known as autocratic

management. Herein, the executive officers, leaders, and top officials are responsible for

reaching the conclusions on what should be implemented to promote change or achieve the goals

that they set. The outcomes are then sent to lower-level staff members to act on through

delegation, cooperative, and independent actions (Harper, 2015). Although there might be some

input on techniques at the lower levels, only the highest level of officials can authorize a change

in policies or objectives. 

     Advantages and disadvantages of top-down approach.  In this method, the objectives are

apparent. The highest officials deal with decision making, middle-management focuses on

delegation and supervision, while the workers attend to tasks in teams. Thus, there is minimal

overlapping of roles. Autocratic programs become exceedingly successful with the increasing

capabilities and competencies of their leaders. However, especially under a fragile leader, a top-
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down approach can become dictatorial and lead to suppressed creativity and rebellion among

actors in the lower levels. 

Bottom-up Program Implementation

     In top-down management, the objective is reached by involving the team members in the

process of management and decision making. Participants in bottom-up are encouraged to

contribute ideas in the planning stages and to reach the milestones set in the plans on their own. 

     Advantages and disadvantages of bottom-down approach. In this approach of

management, all participants feel they are part of the process and have some pride in their input.

Therefore, they work harder to reach the targets, contributing to an overall rise in productivity.

Additionally, unconventional and unexpected solutions are discovered because of the initiatives

of talented low-level participants who are at liberty to be creative. It also leads to novel methods

of achieving goals because of unlikely sources of ideas.

     However, excessive feedback and inputs can lead to slow and ineffective decision making by

the leaders. It also causes the implementation of a single approach to be difficult as unproven

opinions consistently flow in. Generally, because of human factors and differences in views, this

may be chaotic. 

Comparison

     In comparison, there is no single universal argument for the two theories of program

implementation. Whereas the top-down approach is useful under an expert leader and in many

regulated sectors like banking and healthcare, bottom-down techniques are better in autonomous

categories like music and journalism. However, the multi-sectorial nature of most programs

creates the need to integrate aspects of both approaches in some circumstances. 

Opinion
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     All factors considered, a bottom approach is better in mitigating pandemics such as the

current COVID-19 because it is a medical concern, within the highly regulated healthcare sector.

However, some aspects, like communicating new information and implementing the prevailing

wisdom, must utilize the bottom-up approach. During the Ebola epidemic in Africa, a

“centralized, top-down command-and-control structure was activated, with minimal decision

making at the helm, and limited structures for communicating and acting independently at lower

levels of the system” (Nyenswah, Engineer & Peters, 2016). As a result, there was a delay in

responding to the situation, and therefore the virus spread faster. 

     Both top-down and bottom-down approaches should be applied when dealing with influenza-

related illnesses so that the impacts of both can be compared when dealing with future situations.

Top-down techniques can be used to implement collective behavior, while bottom-down

methods are useful in facilitating individual actions (Chen et al., 2017, p. 331). Being an

influenza-like disease that very few experts have information about, governments managing the

COVI-19 pandemic must utilize a top-down approach. The lockdowns, stay at home directives,

healthcare emergency declarations, and other actions that have been made mandatory by leaders

based on medical advice. These actions must be followed as expert information about the disease

is slowly discovered, even though the presidents and authorities autocratically direct them in

healthcare institutions. Moreover, autonomous actions such as reporting cases on the ground,

social distancing, and enforcing rules must be done from the bottom-up, and with the vigilance

of residents in affected countries. 

Conclusion

     In summary, autocratic and democratic program implementation are equally useful in dealing

with pandemics. Through the former, rules and information are designed, and using the latter,
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they are implemented at the grassroots. Even so, there will always be some challenges in solving

networked pandemics which will require the use of assorted known models and new ones as well

(Pellis, et al., 2015).

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References

Chen, J., Lewis, B., Marathe, A., Marathe, M., Swarup, S. & Vullikanti, A. K. S. (2011). Chapter

12 - Individual and collective behavior in public health epidemiology. Handbook of

Statistics. Handbook of Statistics, 36, 329–365. 10.1016/bs.host.2017.08.011.

Nyenswah, Cyrus Y. Engineer & David H. Peters (2016) Leadership in Times of Crisis: The

Example of Ebola Virus Disease in Liberia, Health Systems & Reform, 2 (3), 194-207.

10.1080/23288604.2016.1222793

Pellis, L., Ball, F., Bansal, S., Eames, K., House, T., Isham, V. & Trapman, P. (2015). Eight

challenges for network epidemic models. Epidemics, 10, 58–62.