Professor Michael Barzelay MAR 4.28

This course is available on the CEMS Exchange, Global MSc in Management, Global MSc in Management (CEMS MIM), Global MSc in Management (MBA Exchange), MBA Exchange, MPA Dual Degree (LSE and Columbia), MPA Dual Degree (LSE and Hertie), MPA Dual Degree (LSE and NUS), MPA Dual Degree (LSE and Sciences Po), MPA Dual Degree (LSE and Tokyo), MSc in Development Management, MSc in Development Management (LSE and Sciences Po), MSc in European and International Public Policy, MSc in European and International Public Policy (LSE and Bocconi), MSc in European and International Public Policy (LSE and Sciences Po), MSc in Human Resources and Organisations (Human Resource Management/CIPD), MSc in Human Resources and Organisations (International Employment Relations/CIPD), MSc in Human Resources and Organisations (Organisational Behaviour), MSc in Management (1 Year Programme), MSc in Management and Strategy, MSc in Management of Information Systems and Digital Innovation, MSc in Public Administration and Government (LSE and Peking University) and MSc in Public Policy and Administration. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course cannot be combined with MG467 Strategy and Change in Public Sector Management. This course is available on course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

The public needs capabilities from public organizations, such as those to implement major shifts in public policies; to provide safe and otherwise adequate public services; to deliver technological and programmatic systems through projects; to create credible scientific information for public and policy use; and to deter corruption across the public sector. Furnishing capability to accomplish such purposes requires management of public organizations, and, management, in turn, involves using professional knowledge and skilful abilities to devise mechanisms that will work in challenging situations and settings. 

In this course, students will learn how to engage creatively – as designers and managers -- with practical theories and case-based knowledge in creating mechanisms that work in enabling public organizations to play their crucial roles in government. In particular, the course will focus on how a design-orientation in professional practice can be directed toward overcoming specific conditions and widespread tendencies that work against any specific public organization’s success in furnishing the capabilities required of it.  Case studies will be used to develop this design-orientation, while also expanding students’ familiarity with varied roles played by public organizations, e.g., using regulation to promote waste-reduction in a region’s industrial sector; using international cooperation projects to promote advanced technological education in a partner country; using design-projects to formulate and test operational concepts for performing sanitation functions in delivering a public event attended by millions; using project organizations and tools to control the use of public money and authority in infrastructure projects; and using national-level auditing and criminal investigation tools to combat corruption at the local level.  In this sense, and by using pedagogical methods common to professional schools of public policy and management, the course is emblematic of the design-oriented professional discipline of Public Management.  (Additional course content information on the Course Moodle site.)

30 hours of combined lecture/seminars in the WT.

Students on this course will have a reading week in Week 6, in line with departmental policy.

Essay: Write a 2000-2500 word essay that reflectively examines one course reading from a list of several options. The purpose of the essay is to show how the publication can serve to add breadth and depth to the body of professional knowledge in the Public Management field.

Case analysis: Contribute to a group-project whose deliverable is a 2000-2500 word report that recovers the design of a public organization’s primary working phenomena so that it can serve as a design-reference for future use in managing public organizations.  All groups will be given the same project assignment.

Publications:

E Bardach, ‘The Extrapolation Problem’ (2004); M Barzelay, Public Management as a Design-Oriented Professional Discipline (2019); M. Barzelay, et al.,‘Good Trouble in the Academy: Inventing Design-focused Case Studies about Public Management as an Archetype of Policy Design Research’ (2021); M Barzelay & C Campbell, Preparing for the Future: Strategic Planning in the U.S. Air Force (2003); M Barzelay & S Seabra, ‘Auditing Against Corruption’ (2020); J Bryson, Strategic Planning in Public and Nonprofit Organizations (2017);T Cellucci, ‘Developing Operational Requirements’ (2008);  J Koopenjan, et. al., ‘Competing Management Approaches in Large Engineering Projects’ (2011); B Lawson, What Designers Know (2004); J Tendler & S Freedheim, ‘Trust in a Rent-Seeking Society’ (1994); J van Aken et. al., Problem-Solving in Organizations (2007); D Vaughan, ‘Organizational Rituals of Risk and Error’ (2005).

Videos: 

‘Programs and their Mechanisms’ (2017); ‘Public Management Gallery Tour’ (2017); ‘Furnishing Professional Knowledge about Public Management with Case Studies: A Long Primer’ (2020).

Teaching case studies: 

‘Brazil in Action’; ‘Managing Long-Term Organizational Collaborations in International Development: The Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology’; ‘Managing a Governmental Campaign for a Mega-Event: Strategic Planning for the 2019 Kumbh Mela Hindu Festival in Uttar Pradesh’; ‘Paying the Bills in the Junta of Andalusia’; ‘Preventing Pollution in Massachusetts: The Blackstone Project’; and ‘Assessing Strategic Risks: Col. Jim Engle and the U.S. Air Force Futures Games’.

Essay (45%, 3000 words) and case analysis (45%) in the ST.
Class participation (10%) in the WT.

Essay: Write an essay that reflectively examines one course reading from a list of several options. The purpose of the essay is to show how the publication can serve to add breadth and depth to the body of professional knowledge in the Public Management field (3000 maximum word length). (45%)

Case analysis: Write a case-analysis that recovers the design of a public organization’s primary working phenomenon/a. The purpose of the case-analysis is to furnish design-references for future use in managing public organizations.  Choices of cases to analyze will be limited (3000 maximum word length) (45%)

Class participation: Based on attendance, contribution to class discussion, and posting responses to target statements about readings in early weeks of the course. (10%)