Managing Public Organizations

Catalog description

Public policies are more often than not designed by public sector organizations and implemented by them. To understand public policy, then, students must understand public sector organizations and the people who work in them, interact with them, or are served by them. All of these influence the substantive manner in which public policy is actually implemented and the quality of that implementation. Further, many public policy analysts move into line management positions as their careers develop. How well public sector organizations are managed, then, has a significant impact on public policy outcomes and policy analyst careers. This course considers a range of management issues operative in the daily work of public sector organizations. After first discussing the inherent link between public sector organizations and public policy and discussing how public and private sector organizations differ in regard to management, this discussion considers several broad characteristics that distinguish organizations. This includes organizational structures and cultures. It then addresses the roles of leadership and strategic planning in defining the management function. And last, the course surveys a broad range of persistent management issues with a bearing on public policy: managing the civil service system, motivating employees, organizational performance, contracts and networks, and citizen involvement. More dynamically, it examines the management of conflict, change and innovation, and the political environment. The goals of the course include developing both an understanding of the internal and external influences on public sector organizations as they implement public policies and an appreciation of the range of distinct management issues that influence policy outcomes.