PUBLIC MANAGEMENT LES 1: INTRODUCTION
TODAY GENERAL INTRODUCTIO TO THE COURSE
• Practical organization, course overview & examination
• Empirical scope
o What, who and so what?
o A multi-level approach to public management
PART 1: PRACTICALITIES
• The skeleton: MPOW (George, 2021)
o You don’t need to buy the book!
• In-depth add-ons:
o Academic literature (UFORA)
▪ You need to know and study the articles for the exam, but you don’t need to
know the research designs, this is not a methodology class. So, there will not be
questions on that on the exam.
o Guest lectures
• Exam: written, closed book. 100%
• All things addressed in class, in the readings or in guest lectures can be featured in the exam.
Friendly piece of advice: keep up with the work. It is (will become) much.
PART 2: EMPIRICAL SCOPE
1. WHAT? PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS?
Public management is about managing public organizations. Public organizations are characterized by …
the drive to create public value.
• Question: ‘How are public and private organizations different from one another?’
• Give some keywords/ideas/arguments to indicate how you understand ‘public’.
CORE APPROACH TO ‘PUBLIC’
Public VS. private
~legal type provides a simple but powerful distinction.
~either government-owned, or private owned
Advantages:
• Speaks to common sense.
• Easy to use, the criterion is straightforward.
• A long time they saw the funding decision as something important. But it is not black and white.
This makes it difficult to see what fits in this class and what not.
WHAT?
The case of WADA (→ anti doping agency, they make sure sporters don’t use doping.)
1
,Go to Ufora and consult the WADA article.
• Sit in groups of 2/3 people, read and discuss at a moderate tone.
• Take position: is WADA a public or private organization? Why?
o Why could it be private? They got kicked out of the board.
o Why could it be public? Serves a public goal, non-profit intended, and funded. But are
private entities always for profit? Not really.
o It’s not 100% private and not 100% public. (eerder public)
▪ So, funding
▪ Board members
o And then one hardcore argument: there is direct communication with one of the most
important governments in the world (the white house for example)
o BUT they also can make individual decisions, so they are also a little bit private.
UNIVERSITIES
• Complex organizations ~likely to have more than one legal form.
o Both private (student fees) and public income (subsidies)
o Governed by a board that is in part politically appointed and/or serves because of their
political background.
▪ ~ oversight at arm’s length
Public or private organizations?
DIMENSIONAL APPROACH TO ‘PUBLIC’
Public VS. private
~scale, not a dichotomy
~more or less public depending on the extent to which externally imposed political authority affects them.
!! Measurement – risk of comparing apples with oranges.
• There is no black or white, we will use in this class a more dimensional way.
• So, it is very important if you compare different organizations, because they can be different in
different pieces of publicness and privateness.
PUBLICNESS
THE ‘PUBLICNESS’ PUZZLE
2
,Bozemann & Bretschneider, 1994 (Bozemann is an important author, so if you ever have to write a paper
then you definitely have to use him!!!)
Goal of the study = verify the extent to which a dimensional understanding of publicness provides
additional explanatory power over a core understanding.
~case in point; to what extent is there a difference between public and private.
R&D labs in focus on (a) patents and licenses (~private output), and (b) publication of scientific research
(~public output)?
Main take-away
• Complementary; broad-brush view (does it matter?) AND a fine-grained view (if so, which
dimensions then matter?)
WHO? PUBLIC MANAGERS (A BROAD CONCEPT)
Mark Rutte (the head of the NATO), Rik Van de Walle (rector van Ugent), Sofie Dutordoir (head of the
NMBS), Sergio Buitens (korpchef of a region).
There are three fundamental types of public managers. (pyramid).
• Middle for example (the head of the faculty (decaan)).
• Line: departmental chair
Public managers are not street-level bureaucrats.
3
, These people don’t manage things, they deliver the services and are in direct contact with the end
users. We are going to focus on managers and not SLB.
NOT A SINGLE MOLD OF PUBLIC MANAGERS
Hammerschmid et al. (2016)
6,701 top EU public managers
• 25% degree in business, management or econ, 24% degree in law, 23% degree in engineering and
natural sciences, 13% degree in political science, 15% degree in social sciences
• 21% at least 5 years in private sector, 18% in non-profit
SO WHAT?
Why should you study public management?
You can get insights on how the public sector performance can become better and deliver better services.
UNRAVELLING PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
Macro: Concepts and theories inherent to public management invariable for all PSOs
Meso: public management practices that are implemented differently for different PSOs active in
different environments.
Micro: Relationships with key actors in public management: SLBs, politicians and citizens
4
TODAY GENERAL INTRODUCTIO TO THE COURSE
• Practical organization, course overview & examination
• Empirical scope
o What, who and so what?
o A multi-level approach to public management
PART 1: PRACTICALITIES
• The skeleton: MPOW (George, 2021)
o You don’t need to buy the book!
• In-depth add-ons:
o Academic literature (UFORA)
▪ You need to know and study the articles for the exam, but you don’t need to
know the research designs, this is not a methodology class. So, there will not be
questions on that on the exam.
o Guest lectures
• Exam: written, closed book. 100%
• All things addressed in class, in the readings or in guest lectures can be featured in the exam.
Friendly piece of advice: keep up with the work. It is (will become) much.
PART 2: EMPIRICAL SCOPE
1. WHAT? PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS?
Public management is about managing public organizations. Public organizations are characterized by …
the drive to create public value.
• Question: ‘How are public and private organizations different from one another?’
• Give some keywords/ideas/arguments to indicate how you understand ‘public’.
CORE APPROACH TO ‘PUBLIC’
Public VS. private
~legal type provides a simple but powerful distinction.
~either government-owned, or private owned
Advantages:
• Speaks to common sense.
• Easy to use, the criterion is straightforward.
• A long time they saw the funding decision as something important. But it is not black and white.
This makes it difficult to see what fits in this class and what not.
WHAT?
The case of WADA (→ anti doping agency, they make sure sporters don’t use doping.)
1
,Go to Ufora and consult the WADA article.
• Sit in groups of 2/3 people, read and discuss at a moderate tone.
• Take position: is WADA a public or private organization? Why?
o Why could it be private? They got kicked out of the board.
o Why could it be public? Serves a public goal, non-profit intended, and funded. But are
private entities always for profit? Not really.
o It’s not 100% private and not 100% public. (eerder public)
▪ So, funding
▪ Board members
o And then one hardcore argument: there is direct communication with one of the most
important governments in the world (the white house for example)
o BUT they also can make individual decisions, so they are also a little bit private.
UNIVERSITIES
• Complex organizations ~likely to have more than one legal form.
o Both private (student fees) and public income (subsidies)
o Governed by a board that is in part politically appointed and/or serves because of their
political background.
▪ ~ oversight at arm’s length
Public or private organizations?
DIMENSIONAL APPROACH TO ‘PUBLIC’
Public VS. private
~scale, not a dichotomy
~more or less public depending on the extent to which externally imposed political authority affects them.
!! Measurement – risk of comparing apples with oranges.
• There is no black or white, we will use in this class a more dimensional way.
• So, it is very important if you compare different organizations, because they can be different in
different pieces of publicness and privateness.
PUBLICNESS
THE ‘PUBLICNESS’ PUZZLE
2
,Bozemann & Bretschneider, 1994 (Bozemann is an important author, so if you ever have to write a paper
then you definitely have to use him!!!)
Goal of the study = verify the extent to which a dimensional understanding of publicness provides
additional explanatory power over a core understanding.
~case in point; to what extent is there a difference between public and private.
R&D labs in focus on (a) patents and licenses (~private output), and (b) publication of scientific research
(~public output)?
Main take-away
• Complementary; broad-brush view (does it matter?) AND a fine-grained view (if so, which
dimensions then matter?)
WHO? PUBLIC MANAGERS (A BROAD CONCEPT)
Mark Rutte (the head of the NATO), Rik Van de Walle (rector van Ugent), Sofie Dutordoir (head of the
NMBS), Sergio Buitens (korpchef of a region).
There are three fundamental types of public managers. (pyramid).
• Middle for example (the head of the faculty (decaan)).
• Line: departmental chair
Public managers are not street-level bureaucrats.
3
, These people don’t manage things, they deliver the services and are in direct contact with the end
users. We are going to focus on managers and not SLB.
NOT A SINGLE MOLD OF PUBLIC MANAGERS
Hammerschmid et al. (2016)
6,701 top EU public managers
• 25% degree in business, management or econ, 24% degree in law, 23% degree in engineering and
natural sciences, 13% degree in political science, 15% degree in social sciences
• 21% at least 5 years in private sector, 18% in non-profit
SO WHAT?
Why should you study public management?
You can get insights on how the public sector performance can become better and deliver better services.
UNRAVELLING PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
Macro: Concepts and theories inherent to public management invariable for all PSOs
Meso: public management practices that are implemented differently for different PSOs active in
different environments.
Micro: Relationships with key actors in public management: SLBs, politicians and citizens
4
