PP403      Half Unit
Public Management

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

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This course offers an intensive introduction to key themes and concepts in the study of public management and ‘craft of government’. It focuses specifically on challenges of designing and implementing transformative change through public programmes or services, covering developed and lesser developed world contexts. There is strong emphasis on the ‘instrumental’ capacity of governments to design and manage change, as well as on the ‘adaptive’ capacity of governments to respond effectively to an ever-changing policy environments.

The course is primarily about government and public sector; however it also covers the capacity of governments to coordinate effectively with private and third sectors in designing and managing transformative change. The course is designed for MPP students who have worked in government, as well as for those who have worked in other roles that involve working closely with government and public sector.

The course discusses challenges of framing and diagnosing ‘wicked’ problems, and tools for conceptualising design and delivery of holistic governance.  The course works through key aspects of public design and management, including strategy and strategic planning, policy instruments, organisational structure and culture, motivation, control and coordination, leadership, digital-era systems, resilience, and organizational learning.  

The course integrates key concepts and literatures, guest practitioners, case study learning, and interactive peer-learning and discussion.

16.5 hours of seminars, 22 hours of lectures and 6 hours of workshops in the Autumn Term.

This course is delivered through a combination of pre-recorded video material, interactive ‘flipped’ lectures and seminars, and fortnightly ‘spotlight’ workshops, totalling a minimum of 44 hours across Autumn Term. Teaching will take place across 11 weeks, and there is no Reading Week.

Students will write a formative ‘checklist plan’ for the case analysis in Week 7 of the AT.

• Head, Brian. W. (2022). ‘Wicked Problems in Public Policy: Understanding and responding to complex challenges’ (Palgrave Pivot series). Chapters 1 and 2.
• Bason, Christian (2017), Leading Public Design: Discovering Human-centred Governance, (Policy Press: Bristol)
• Simon, Herbert (1996), Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press)
• Roberts, John (2004), The Modern Firm (Oxford, Oxford University Press)
• Hood, Christopher (1998), The Art of the State: Culture, Rhetoric and Public Management (Oxford, Oxford University Press)
• Schein, Edgar H. (2010), Organizational culture and leadership (San Francisco, John Wiley & Sons Inc.)
• Hood, C. and Margetts, H. (2007), The Tools of Government in the Digital Age (Basingstoke, Palgrave MacMillan)
• Mintzberg, Henry. (2023), ‘Understanding organisations…finally! Structuring in sevens’, (Oakland, CA)
• Weick, Karl. E. (1995) Sensemaking in Organizations (London, Sage)

The given texts are preparatory reading only. A full reading list will be provided at the start of the course.

Presentation (30%)

This component of assessment includes an element of group work.

Case analysis / study (35%, 2500 words)

Project (35%, 2000 words)