Public Policy & Management
Optional Courses
We offer a wide range of options in both public policy and management fields. The precise list may vary from year to year reflecting staff availability. The following gives an indication of the current choices. The following provides summary information on the aims and content of each elective. Students can take any combination with the one exception that Assessing the Impacts of Social Networks on Organisational Performance cannot be taken with Managing Work and Employee Participation due to timetabling restrictions.
Assessing the Impacts of Social Networks on Organisational Performance
This course introduces students to how social networks shape the way work gets done within organisations and impact on performance. It will examine the emergent Network Theory and how this can be used to analyse network performance. Based on this analysis, it will identify how best to drive organisational performance. The students will be provided with the tools to critically review network data and make an objective observation as to the effectiveness of networks within their own work environment. The elective will also provide the student with an overview of the limitations of Network Analysis, identifying barriers to network development and efficiency that may exist within an organisation.
Evaluation for Public Policy [EPP]
This module introduces participants to contrasting approaches to the evaluation of public policies and programmes. Throughout the module, the emphasis is on developing the student’s capacity to identify the most appropriate tools for a given context by identifying the range of possible approaches to evaluation and the strengths and weaknesses of each. Approaches examined include: impact evaluations and cost-benefit models; pluralistic or stakeholder evaluations; participatory and empowerment evaluations; and process evaluations and theories of change. The course aims to make participants more informed users and commissioners of evaluations.
Local Economic Development [LED]
This module examines the sources of economic prosperity and considers the different ways government bodies at regional and local levels can stimulate or shape growth and development. It explores some of the tensions and trade-offs involved in an increasingly open, market-oriented economy, including the balance between efficiency/productivity and equality/employment; between externally-generated growth and growth from within; and between the performance of places with different productive potential. It aims to provide students with an analytical framework and techniques to understand the dynamics of a local economy. It examines a range of particular interventions including policies to improve business infrastructure, connectivity, innovation and small and medium enterprises.
Managing Work and Employee Participation [MWEP]
This course focuses on workplace innovation, exploring various challenges to orthodox notions about management and labour. A large number of management gurus and commentators are calling for employee empowerment, partnership working and direct participation to enhance the effectiveness of public and private-sector organisations. The course therefore focuses on the underlying assumptions and practical developments that are associated with these developments. The programme will respond to contemporary developments but will typically cover practical team working, cultural influences and interventions, financial participation, user-involvement in the application of new work technologies, and regulatory developments, especially within the European Union. The course will have an applied dimension, relating research and case deliberations on the ‘working out’ of practical innovations to the development of management insights and capabilities that may inform reflective practice.
This module aims to familiarise students with the management methods and techniques most commonly used to plan, organise, and control change projects. The primary focus will be on the effective application of project management as a planning and control system. It will explore how work breakdown structures can be applied, assessing the theoretical and practical aspects of various workload and cost estimation methodologies, and use of project budgets. It will also examine issues of risk and risk management. The course will use small case studies and problem-based learning, and the use of spreadsheet tools for analysis and applications of project management tools will be demonstrated.
Public Policy and Fiscal Austerity [PPFA]
The aim of this course is to provide students with tools and methods derived from diverse backgrounds (economics, public finance, political economy, policy analysis) to help understand, debate, analyze and propose reforms to contemporary welfare and public policies – within a context of likely long term pressure on traditional public funding and spending (so-called ‘fiscal austerity’). The principles are supported by case studies throughout the two day course (and followed up with a half-day tutorial).
Strategic Management and Decision Making [SMDM]
The aim of this course is to enhance the students’ capabilities in management, leadership, decision-making, financial planning, negotiation, team working and associated competencies by relating established theory and knowledge in these fields to real estate, planning and urban policy.
This elective takes as its focus the dynamics of “strategy work” and the relationship between strategy and organisational change. The study of organisational change is inherently multi-disciplinary and consequently this class takes a consciously cross-disciplinary approach to its exploration of the dynamics of strategy. The elective is designed to allow students to critically explore the most recent developments in the field of strategy dynamics by comparing and contrasting different perspectives from the literatures on organisational change and strategy. Students will review popular models of organisational change and relate these to the dynamics of strategy, and learn to recognise obstacles to change. The class will include a variety of teaching and learning approaches including lectures, case studies, group work, and discussions.