Dr Alberto Asquer

This course is available on the MPA in European Public and Economic Policy, MPA in International Development, MPA in Public Policy and Management, MPA in Public and Economic Policy and MPA in Public and Social Policy. This course is not available as an outside option.

The course develops the practical knowledge and analytical skill to make sense of field problems faced by public managers, and to design and implement strategic and effective practical action in the public sector. In Michaelmas Term, the course focuses on making sense of the fuzzy problem-messes faced by public managers, and introduces students to the graphical and theoretical tools used to represent and reverse engineer the dynamic social systems involved. In Lent Term, the course focuses on the strategic design, evaluation and implementation of various organisational activities, such as policy interventions, managerial control systems, and strategic planning. Overall, the course provides a foundation for further coursework about management in the public sector as well as the ability to engage constructively and critically in the development of public management practise.

30 hours of seminars in the MT. 30 hours of seminars in the LT. 6 hours of seminars in the ST.

Students will be expected to produce 2 essays in the MT and LT.

MH Moore, Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in
Government (1995).
KE Weick, 'The Collapse of Sense-Making in Organizations: The Mann-Gulch
Disaster' (1993).
C Heath and N Staudenmayer, "Coordination Neglect: How Lay Theories of
Organizing Complicate Coordination in Organizations" (2000).
J Tendler and S Freedheim, 'Trust in a World of Rent-Seeking: Health and
Government Transformed in Northeast Brazil' (1994).
E Bardach and R Kagan, Going by the Book (2002).
JL Mashaw, 'Conflict and Compromise among Models of Administrative Justice,'
(1981).M Zollo and SG Winter, 'Deliberate Learning and the Evolutionof Dynamic
Capabilities' (2002).
E Bardach, 'The Extrapolation Problem: How Can We Learn from the Experience of
Others?' (2004).
D Vaughan,'Organizational Rituals of Risk and Error' (2005).
M Barber, Instruction to Deliver: Fighting to Transform Britain's Public
Services (2007).

Essay (30%, 3000 words) and presentation (15%) in the LT.
Essay (40%, 4000 words) in the ST.
Presentation (15%) in the MT.