See module specification for other years:
2022-232023-24
Module will run
Occurrence
Teaching period
A
Spring Term 2021-22
Module aims
This module explores the theory and practice of strategy within the context of public service organisations, this is considered to include all for whom profit is not a fundamental issues, not just government but NGOs and the like.
The module focuses on the importance of context in public sector strategy, encouraging critical engagement with the economic, social and institutional factors that shape strategy, and their relation to issues of leadership, politics, identity and learning. It takes a highly critical position on the Strategy Consultant model, Homos Strategicus, and argues for an individual and imaginative approach to strategy formulation that takes a bespoke rather than modelled position. It criticises the modelled position, the generic consultant approach from the economic theory of the declining rate of profit.
The course will endeavour to illustrate the role of Strategy in the International Political Economy. There will be a variety of theoretical journal readings and a few key chapters from a variety of books. Students will undertake a group simulation and be introduced to the practical factors that influence strategic decision making, the so called soft struggles such as personality clashes, egos, and individual ambitions which are an important part of strategy and so often unengaged with academically.
Module learning outcomes
On successful completion of the course students will be able to:
Research a range of strategic analysis tools, models and techniques;
Select a number of these to develop and implement a plan of action to apply to a simulated public organisation;
Evaluate the effectiveness of the tools used;
Describe likely scenarios that will impact the simulated public organisation;
Reflect on the effectiveness of strategic management tools and techniques in learning, action and their own development and future as a strategist;
Appraise the role of formal planning in none-profit organisations.
Module content
Students will work on a game/case in diverse teams; the game/case will be dynamic with the decisions of one team affecting all the others potentially.
There will be competitive and co-operative elements in the case, therefore negotiation skills inside and outside the team will be integral to success.
Students will learn individual and group presentation skills.
Students will develop team working approaches.
There will be a consideration of the differences between public and private positions on strategic issues.
Students will have an opportunity to keep a reflexive diary of the type required by professional institutes for personal and professional development
Mintzberg, H. (2008). Strategy bites back: it is a lot more, and less, than you ever imagined. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall.
Johnson, G. (2001). Exploring public sector strategy. Harlow: Prentice Hall.
Glauco, D V. (2002), Does Assessed Multicultural Group, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, vol. 27, issue 2, pp. 153-161.
Babnik Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Primorska, (2014). The mission statement: organisational culture perspective, Industrial management & data systems, vol. 114, issue 4, pp. 612-627.
Campbell, A. and Young, S. (1991). Creating a Sense of Mission, Long Range Planning, vol. 24, issue 4, pp. 10-20.
Chapman, (2006). Anxiety and defective decision making: an elaboration of the groupthink mode, management decision, vol. 44, issue 10, pp. 1391-1404.
Wilkinson, G. and Monkhouse, E. (1994), Strategic planning in public sector organizations,
Grant, Robert M., 1948- (2010). Contemporary strategy analysis: text and cases. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Chapter: The Concept of Strategy.
Llewellyn, S. and Tappin, E. (2003), Strategy in the Public Sector: Management in the Wilderness, The Journal of Management Studies, vol. 40, issue 4, pp. 955-982.
Moore, M. F. (2009). Capitalism. Paramount
Garvin., David A., and Lynne C., Levesque., (2005), A Note on Scenario Planning, Harvard business review
Banks, Iain M,. The Player of Games, Banks, London : Macmillan, 1988