Course description
On completion of this unit successful participants will be able to:
• Understand the issues involved in assessing the differences and similarities between public and other sectors
• Utilise a variety of theoretical and analytical frameworks to evaluate public organisational and management issues
• Understand the main debates, controversies and issues in public administration and public management reform
• Critically evaluate evidence of change and success in public organisation and management reforms
Key Transferable Skills:
On successful completion of this course unit, participants should have developed:
• Ability to utilise and understand the strengths and weaknesses of various analytical and theoretical frameworks
• Ability to critically assess evidence in organisational and managerial contexts
• Ability to apply both of the above to real cases
• Increased team-work and inter-personal skills
• Improved study skills
Curriculum Content:
• The Public Domain: what is the “public sector” and how is it different from the private of “third” sectors?
• Organisations: what are organisations and how can they best be analysed?
• Management: what is the management function and how has it been conceived?
• Evidence: how to acquire, assess and use evidence in analysing organisations and management
• Public Administration: the classical answer to how to manage public organisations was known as ‘public administration’. This was closely linked to ideas about neutral state bureaucracy, representative democracy and accountability. What were the benefits and problems of public administration? Is PA still relevant? Is it more relevant in some countries, sectors and functions than others?
• New Public Management (NPM): a wave of public organisation and management reforms started in the 1980s which has become known as ‘NPM’ – what exactly is NPM and how does it differ from classical public administration? What evidence exists for NPM having been enacted and for its success?
• The Public Manager: what is their role? How is it changing both from public management reforms and other pressures and changes? How much is it a contextual role, and how much generic?
• Beyond NPM: new themes in public management reform
Core Texts
• Tony Bovaird and Elke Lofler (Eds) Public Management and Governance, 2003, Routledge
• Janet & Robert Denhardt, The New Public Service, 2003 M. E. Sharpe
• Ewan Ferlie, Andrew Pettigrew et al, The New Public Management in Action, 1996, Oxford University Press.
• Ewan Ferlie, Larry Lynn and Christopher Pollitt (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of Public Management, 2005, Oxford University Press.
• Christopher Hood The Art of the State – Culture, Rhetoric and Public Management, 1998, Clarendon, Oxford.
• Owen Hughes Public Management and Administration, 2003,Palgrave
• Henry Mintzberg, Structure in Fives, 1983, Prentice-Hall
• Gareth Morgan, Images of Organization, 1997, Sage.
• David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, Reinventing Government, 1992, Addison Wesley
• Christopher Pollitt, The Essential Public Manager, 2003, Open University Press.
• Christopher Pollitt and Geert Bouckaert, Public Management Reform (2/e), 2004, Oxford
• Christopher Pollitt and Colin Talbot, Unbundled Government, 2004, Routledge.
• Robert E. Quinn et al, Becoming a Master Manager, 1996 Wiley
• James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy, 1989, Basic Books
Key journals include the following:
• Governance
• The International Journal of Public Sector Management
• International Review of Administrative Sciences
• Public Administration
• Public Administration & Development
• Public Administration Review
• Public Management Review
• Public Money & Management (especially useful for UK case studies)
• Public Policy And Administration
