Course content
As well as studying the modules below, you will also need to complete a dissertation of around 8,000 words to complete the course. Your dissertation allows you to test, demonstrate, and practise the conceptual models and frameworks learned on the programme. It's usually focused on a real-life question of policy or management in your own organisation. You will be expected to mobilise resources in key areas such as planning, financial management, business development, project and people management, teamwork, corporate strategy, and ICT.
The modules
- Leadership & Networks
- Gain an overview of the whole spectrum of leadership and organisation strategies including technical and adaptive leadership and how to mobilise hierarchies, markets, and networks to the greatest effect. Focus on the knowledge and skills involved in mobilising, managing, and maintaining inter-organisational relationships, networks, and partnerships at different stages in their life cycle. Consider when to collaborate and when to compete; the dilemmas faced by organisational representatives to inter-organisational partnerships; and the complex roles of the alliance manager in sustaining effective partnership working.
- Complexity & Systems
- The increasingly complex world in which we live is manifest both in the speed and change that we face, and in the increasing inter-connectedness of areas that we manage. Complexity and uncertainty are further exacerbated by the existence of multiple views and conflicting interests among organisational actors regarding the scope, shape, and ways of managing organisational tasks. Explore a number of the practical methodologies that have emerged within the operational research and systems fields in response to the complexity and uncertainty characteristic of both intra- and inter-organisational decision making. Develop and extend your understanding of content and process management skills and consider their potential application in your project dissertation and future work.
- Service Delivery: Improvement & Performance
- Focus on the knowledge and skills involved in designing, developing, and delivering programmes to foster and sustain processes of continuous improvement and innovation in public sector organisations and in public/private/voluntary sector partnerships. Develop and extend your understanding of current frameworks of performance measurement and performance management by exploring material from diverse sources. Gain a crucial view of performance measurement and management in the public sector, leading to frameworks and perspectives that can be used for assessment purposes within the organisational/inter-organisational context.
- Change & Innovation
- Managing organisational and cultural change is a central feature of public services in the current era of modernisation and improvement, deriving both from the central government agenda and from wider challenges and changes in our society. Contemporary leaders and managers need to be able to steer and manage organisational and cultural change, both in terms of substantial changes in structures and cultures and in terms of continuous improvement and innovation. You will explore these issues from both a theoretical and practical perspective, and examine theories from the private and public sectors, exploring the implications for public and voluntary sector organisations. Consider different strategies of change and just how to lead staff and customers through the emotional upheavals of change.
- Strategy & Practice in the Public Services
- Consider the knowledge and skills necessary to develop and sustain a clear strategic direction for individual organisations and also inter-organisational partnerships, joint ventures, and networks. Explore how to do this while also adapting to a continuously changing environment, and changing patterns of need and expectation from users, citizens, and communities while at the same time ensuring there is a strong link between the process of strategy making itself and the actual day-to-day practice of management in action.
- Community Engagement and User & Citizen Involvement
- Explore the knowledge and skills necessary to lead and manage activities across the boundary between the public sector and the voluntary and neighbourhood community sectors. How can you consult and engage with individual users, groups of users, neighbourhood community organisations, and other networks within civil society? Consider the challenges involved in the personalisation of public service, and the dilemmas raised by the notion of more choice for users and consumers of public services.