PA535 - Public Policy and Management
Political Science and Public Administration
Sheree R. Nelson, E-Mail -- Vita
None
Course Overview:
Public Policy and Management is a graduate course in the theory and practice of management in the public and nonprofit sector. There is an emphasis on strategic management methods and the impact of public policy issues on planning and decision-making. However, various public and nonprofit management situations and problems are also presented for analysis. From minor difficulties encountered in day-to-day management situations to more difficult problems involving principle and policy, the cases presented throughout the course present a well-rounded perspective of the types of situations that public and nonprofit managers may encounter in their careers.
The first part of the course focuses on strategic management methods, with various options presented for the planning and implementing of the various strategies. The last part of the course presents a number of cases to interpret, analyze and apply the appropriate strategic methods. Additionally, the strategic methods presented will be applied to a number of situations and problems.
Course Objectives:
In this course you will:
Learn about the continual changes in public management and how these changes have affected public administrators.
Study some of the strategies of private sector businesses that can be applied to public and nonprofit management.
Examine the limitations of applying private sector management techniques in public sector settings.
Study three approaches to strategy formulation and when to use each successfully.
Learn when and how to apply strategies in a turbulent environment that requires stabilizing.
Consider and evaluate the various political implications of implementing strategies from both within and outside public organizations.
Determine which strategy is appropriate for individual organizations and/or organizational goals.
Analyze and apply strategies to a variety of administrative situations and quandaries.
Examine various scenarios that require management’s intervention on both small and large scales.
Kevin P. Kerns, Private Sector Strategies for Social Sector Success: The Guide to Strategy and Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2000) ISBN: 0787941891 (This book can be purchased online through Barnes and Noble)>
C. Kenneth Meyer, Practicing Public Management: A Casebook. (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 1989) ISBN: 0312003293 (This book can be purchased directly from the author, Dr. C. Kenneth Meyer, Professor, Drake University. The cost is $30, and his mailing address is 4917 Twana Drive, Des Moines, Iowa 50310.)
Grading:
As a self-guided course, it is imperative that all reading and assignments are done according to the schedule. Early completion of assignments is accepted, but late submissions are penalized. Each late assignment will receive an automatic 10% reduction. After one week, assignments will not be accepted without prior approval from me. Your writing is expected to be free of numerous grammatical errors, and your assignments are expected to be well thought through and complete.
Final grades will be based on the following:
Week One Assignment: 10%
Week Two Assignment: 10%
Week Three Assignment: 10%
Week Four Assignment: 10%
Week Five Assignment: 10%
Week Six Assignment: 10%
Week Seven Assignment: 20%
Week Eight Assignment: 20%
Grades will be based on the following scale:
90-100% A
80-89% B
70-79% C
60-69% D
0-59% F
Course Outline:
Week One
Introduce yourself via e-mail to snelson@canyoncollege.edu. Include any political science, public policy or government courses you have taken, as well as your professional experience. Please inform me at this time if you plan to complete the course in the full eight weeks, or if you’d prefer to work on an accelerated schedule.
Readings:
(Kerns) Preface and Chapter 1 Embracing New Challenges and Opportunities: Strategic Management in Government and Nonprofit Organizations
(Kerns) Chapter 2 Understanding Three Models of Strategy Formulation
Chapter Notes: Chapter 1
Today’s organizations face challenges that can no longer be addressed effectively with many of the traditional methods. Current management perspectives and practices in the public and nonprofit sector are adapting to the evolving environments that often require traditionally private sector approaches to either grow, stabilize or even just to survive. A hypothetical situation is posed in this chapter to illustrate the concerns of a public manager in an environment that faces these very real changes and challenges. Further, some public vs. private management perspectives are addressed, with insights about what business can and cannot teach the public and nonprofit manager.
Chapter 2
Another situation is used in this chapter to illustrate three approaches to strategy formulation. This chapter outlines what each approach is, the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and how the manager in the story utilizes each one of them.
Assignment (10%): (Due by Sunday, at the end of week one.)
Answer questions 1 and 3 on page 31.
Create an outline of the three approaches. Include their components, strengths and weaknesses and suggestions for fostering their strengths and minimizing their weaknesses.
Answer the following questions: A. Which approach best describes your management style and why? B. How would you offset the weaknesses of this approach? C. How could you benefit from incorporating the other two approaches into your management style? D. List examples, either from your past experience or hypothetical, of when each approach would seem most appropriate
Week Two
Readings:
(Kerns) Chapter 3 Using Environmental Scanning to Track Trends and Prospects
(Kerns) Chapter 4 Analyzing Your Organization’s Portfolio
Chapter Notes: Chapter 3
Similar to what business refers to as industry analysis, environmental scanning is the method used to determine:
What outside economic factors have an affect on an organization and others like it,
The intensity of competition (if any) among those organizations,
The external forces that drive change among like organizations, and
The prospects for an organization’s portfolio of programs and services.
Not to be confused with industry analysis, environmental scanning factors in objectives and methods that have been adapted for application to public and nonprofit contexts. Similar to private business, however, it is a systematic effort to gather information on the strategic environment in which the organization exists. It assesses opportunities and challenges facing an organization and others like it to determine as best one can the overall prospects for the current or contemplated portfolio of programs and services.
The first step when conducting an environmental scan is to define the boundaries of a strategic environment. The focus of the analysis must be defined; which, basically, means to determine what types of organizations make up the strategic environment. Further, it is important to establish which of these organizations is related to, similar to or substitutable for an organization’s portfolio. This will keep the attention on an organization’s programs and services and on the organizations that provide comparable programs and services.
When conducting an environmental scan, there are four essential questions to address.
What are the key economic characteristics of our strategic environment?
How intense is the competition (if any) in our strategic environment?
What forces drive change our strategic environment?
Overall, what are the prospects for our portfolio of programs and services?
Chapter 4
Managers must continually assess whether their organizations should grow, retrench or stabilize. Portfolio analysis requires management to examine each of the organization’s programs and services in relation to the environment. As one of the most widely used strategic management tools in the business world, portfolio analysis can be used to:
Assess whether your organization’s portfolio of programs and services is in sync with external opportunities and challenges,
Assess the contribution of each program or service to an organization’s overall strategic position and competitiveness in the marketplace,
Assess the contribution of each program or service to organization-wide objectives and strategies, and
Determine whether all parts of the portfolio are working in concert to achieve strategic goals.
There are a number of portfolio models. Most of them were developed specifically for private business. However, several variants of portfolio analysis have been developed specifically for public and nonprofit organizations. Kerns refers to the Boston Consulting Group’s Growth-Share Matrix; the Gruber and Mohr Framework; and the MacMillan Framework. Each of these has its strengths and weaknesses. It’s important to review these models, carefully, and examine their various components. Referring to the exhibits, figures and tables in this chapter is crucial to understand these models’ concepts.
Not without weaknesses, portfolio analysis must be used with caution. Organizations that refer to a particular model may conform too strictly to whatever the matrix recommends. It is most effective, however, when used as an aid for strategic development. It is most valuable when it helps management ask the right questions about an organization. Using portfolio analysis in public and nonprofit organizations requires strict attention to the organizational mission. When used carefully, however, it can prove to be a powerful tool to obtain an overall view of an organization’s products and services and how they work together to achieve organizational strategy. If it results in management being forced to ask itself some very tough questions about the organization, then the analysis has been successful and valuable.
Assignment (10%): (Due by Sunday, at the end of week two.)
Outline the four essential questions listed above in chapter 3, including the pertinent factors included in the book for each.
Answer question 1 on page 107.
Outline the various models covered in Chapter 4. Be sure to include the analysis on page 130.
Create a hypothetical public or nonprofit organization (like the examples in the book). Create a portfolio for it with at least three programs and/or services. Apply one of the portfolio analysis models to your “organization,” and create a multicelled matrix for it.
List the strengths and weaknesses of your chosen model for your created “organization.”
Week Three
Readings:
(Kerns) Chapter 5 Growth Strategies
Chapter Notes:
Kerns points out that “In the public and nonprofit sectors, growth should never become an end in itself. Rather, grow is only a means to an end, one way among many to improve services and accountability to the publics these sectors serve.” With this in mind, growth strategies must be carefully evaluated prior to planning and implementation to determine whether an organization’s mission and goals are not being replaced by misinterpreted community needs, management’s misguided motives or outside political pressures.
It is quite possible that every proposal for growth may be met with mixed reactions. Therefore, being prepared for the various perspectives that will be presented is a wise move for every administrator. In the Lakeview Women’s Center and Shelter example, various arguments for and against a growth strategy proposal are outlined. From concerns about drifting away from the original mission of the organization to concerns about relying too heavily on a particular administrator, unfavorable arguments are certain to arise when a growth strategy is proposed. Further, favorable arguments such as those related to moral obligations and changing community needs will surface to support a growth strategy proposal.
Concentration Strategy and Diversification Strategy
An organization can grow in two ways. According to Kerns, “it can focus on delivering more of the programs and services that are already in its portfolio, essentially doing more of what it already does.” This is referred to as a concentration growth strategy. Within this approach an organization can attempt to expand horizontally or vertically.
The second way that an organization can grow is to add new programs and services to its existing portfolio. Kerns refers to this as diversification. Within this approach an organization can engage in concentric or conglomerate diversification.
There are two ways to implement either the concentration strategy or the diversification strategy. An organization can rely on “internal growth,” which requires the use of existing resources, or it can acquire the resources it needs from another organization through collaboration, acquisition or merger (external growth).
With all these options of various combinations, as illustrated on page 143, it’s no wonder public and nonprofit administrators who attempt to implement a growth strategy are faced with an incredible task.
When a concentration strategy is proposed, the management is confident that the organization’s existing portfolio of programs and services is sufficient. This approach is used to reach more people or enhance the existing programs’ and services’ efficiency. Further, before selecting this approach an organization must be rather confident that the organization’s comparative advantages and its ability to provide the necessary portfolio are at least that of other providers of similar programs and services. Kerns suggests the following issues to think about when contemplating a concentration strategy:
Does our organization have a strong comparative advantage over other organizations in the production and delivery of certain programs and services?
Is the demand among citizens or clients for these programs and services likely to remain strong for the foreseeable future?
If it seems that demand will be strong for the foreseeable future, how can our organization serve more people with its programs and services?
Is it possible to strengthen our organization’s already strong position vis-à-vis other providers?
Would it be helpful for our organization to gain greater control over the supply of raw materials and other inputs it needs to produce its programs and services?
Would it be helpful for our organization to gain greater control over the distribution channels for its programs and services?
Is it desirable for our organization to extend the boundaries of its service area to include people or regions it is not now serving?
Once these questions are addressed and management determines that a concentration strategy should be implemented, it must then be determined if either a horizontal or a vertical growth strategy will be used. With each there are costs and benefits.
When management suspects that their organization’s current portfolio of programs and services may be endangered or that its mission could be advanced more effectively with a more diverse portfolio, a diversification strategy may be in order. When contemplating diversification strategies, Kerns asserts the following questions should be answered:
Is the demand for our organization’s current portfolio of programs and services likely to shrink in the foreseeable future? If so, diversification might be necessary before the bottom drops out of the market for that existing portfolio.
Does our organization have spin-off expertise; can it apply its skills to the delivery of programs and services that are not currently in its portfolio? If so, the expertise might be directed toward more fruitful activities as demand shifts away from the organization’s current portfolio.
Can diversification open new opportunities for synergy among the programs and services in our organization’s portfolio or with other organizations?
Can our organization diversify without losing sight of our core mission? Will diversification help to advance our core mission?
Once management determines that a diversification strategy is in order, it must then be decided whether a concentric or a conglomerate diversification best suites the goals and objectives of the organization. And, yes, there are costs and benefits for both.
Once a decision has been made to implement either a concentration or a diversification strategy, it must then be determined if it will be accomplished via internal or external growth. Internal growth occurs when an organization enhances its own capacity to produce more goods and services and to distribute then more widely. External growth is accomplished through mergers, acquisitions, consolidations and joint ventures. When deciding which approach is best, the following questions should be asked:
Assuming that growth is the appropriate strategy, can we grow on our own, or do we need the assistance of another organization?
Does our organization have the necessary resources, skills, willpower and time to grow on its own? What is preventing it from using internal growth strategies?
Are there any targets of opportunity for external growth? Do we know of other organizations looking for a partner or a savior?
Will the weaknesses of our organization preclude an external growth strategy? Or will other organizations find it an attractive partner?
Assignment (10%): (Due by Sunday of Week Three)
Address each of the arguments against the growth proposal for LWCS. Outline each argument and address the concerns as if you were the administrator seeking approval from the Board of Trustees.
Outline the costs and benefits for both horizontal and vertical growth strategies.
Outline the costs and benefits for both concentric and conglomerate growth strategies.
Outline what the book says about mergers, acquisitions, consolidations and joint ventures.
Thoroughly answer questions 3 and 4 on page 161.
Week Four
Readings:
(Kerns) Chapter 6 Retrenchment Strategies
(Meyer) Part I Pages 1-12, Begin reviewing the cases, paying particular attention to case #’s 2, 4, 6, 26, 29, 32, 33, 35 and 36.
Chapter Notes:
There are times when it’s best to conserve critical resources and lay the foundation for later victories. As the card game scenario in the beginning of the chapter illustrates, it is sometimes best to fold early and live to fight another day.
A study conducted by Levine, Rubin, and Wolohojian led to their assertion that governments may go through several phases of retrenchment. Although not necessarily fixed in their sequence or exclusive of one another, the phases are:
Denying and delaying.
Stretching resources.
Making deeper cuts.
Further, they contended that the way a government responds to fiscal distress seems to depend not only on the extent of the revenue-expenditure gap but also on the political system and the power and energy of the various groups who lobby for protection of their interests.
Ranging from modest to extreme efforts, retrenchment can involve turnaround strategies, divestment of selected programs or services, or liquidation. Each strategy is used for a specific type of concerns. Kerns outlines these strategies very well in chapter 6 and includes various issues to consider. This is the area where politics often comes into the picture, as the decisions for retrenchment will be affected by the powers that be and the influential interested parties in the community.
Assignment (10%): (Due by Sunday of Week Four)
Using my notes for Chapters 1-5 as a reference, but with much more detail, completely outline the remainder of the chapter. Be sure to include all of the points presented.
Answer questions 2 and 3 on page 217.
Week Five
Readings:
(Kerns) Chapter 7 Stability Strategies
Chapter Notes:
(Kerns)
You will outline Chapter 7.
(Meyer)
In addition to the need for strategic approaches, public and nonprofit managers are faced with a broad range of issues on a daily basis. Unlike their counterparts in the private sector, public and nonprofit managers must always make their decisions with politics and public policy in mind. Issues that are as common today as they were ages ago, including careless or indifferent employees and supervisors, policy determination, personality conflicts, boredom, and improving efficiency and productivity, and are experienced by managers in both the public and the private arena, are presented by Meyer. He also includes more contemporary problems including the increasing number of women in the work force and in management-level positions, equal opportunity, workfare, affirmative action, polygraph testing, alcohol and drug abuse, community economic development, employee rights, and environmental problems.
Case-study analysis has gained popularity over the years. Although it is considered to be most effective in group interactions, the cases will serve as a valuable tool for this course.
Assignment (10%): (Due by Sunday of Week Five)
Similar to Week Five’s assignment #1, outline Chapter 7. (Before you do this assignment, you may want to check with me to determine if Week Five’s assignment was completed sufficiently.
Answer question 2 on page 240.
Outline Part I in the Meyer textbook.
Select 2 cases with different topics (the topics are listed in the front of the book) from the Meyer textbook. Answer each of the questions at the end of the case. Do not hesitate to present your analysis with outside supportive material (This is actually strongly encouraged!).
Chapter Notes:
(Kerns) You will outline this chapter.
Assignment (10%): (Due by Sunday of Week Six)
Outline Chapter 8, using my feedback on Chapter 7’s outline as a guide.
Select 3 cases with different topics from the Meyer textbook. Answer each of the questions at the end of the case. Do not hesitate to present your analysis with outside supportive material (This is actually strongly encouraged!).
Week Seven
Readings:
(Kerns) Chapter 9 Implementing Strategic Decisions and Conclusion
Chapter Notes:
You will outline Chapter 9 and the Conclusion.
Assignment (20%): (Due by Sunday of Week Seven)
Outline Chapter 9 and the Conclusion.
Select a case from the Meyer textbook in which a growth strategy would be applicable. Outline the strategy and explain why you chose it and how it will be effective. Be sure to include all areas of concern as necessary, such as environmental scanning.
Week Eight
Readings:
None
Chapter Notes:
None
Assignment (20%): (Due by Sunday of Week Eight)
Select a case from the Meyer textbook in which a retrenchment strategy would be applicable. Outline the strategy and explain why you chose it and how it will be effective. Be sure to include all areas of concern as necessary, such as environmental scanning.
Select a case from the Meyer textbook in which a stability strategy would be applicable. Outline the strategy and explain why you chose it and how it will be effective. Be sure to include all areas of concern as necessary, such as environmental scanning.
Select a case from the Meyer textbook in which a collaborative strategy would be applicable. Outline the strategy and explain why you chose it and how it will be effective. Be sure to include all areas of concern as necessary, such as environmental scanning.
