Course 2025-2026 a.y.

30341 - MANAGEMENT OF GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS

Department of Social and Political Sciences

Course taught in English

Student consultation hours

BIG (8 credits - I sem. - OB | SECS-P/07)

Course Director:
AMELIA COMPAGNI

Classes: 44 (I sem.)

Instructors:
Class 44: AMELIA COMPAGNI

Mission & Content Summary

MISSION

The course aims at making students aware of the role and relevance that organizations of public interest fulfill in modern liberal democracies. The course provides an analytical framework for reflecting on the most relevant tools at the disposal of policy-makers and public administrators to design, organize, manage and improve public sector organizations. The course compare and contrast tools employed at a national level with those typical of international contexts.

CONTENT SUMMARY

The course employs the lenses of organization and management theory to analyze organizations of public interest at the international (e.g. UN) and national levels. It explores a series of relevant topics considering different levels of analysis: the public sector in its entirety, networks of organizations, and dynamics at play within single organizations. Among the topics the course covers:

Organizational design and the main trade-offs in choosing the structure of organizations.
Organizational mission, strathegy and the environment; issues of stakeholder management (in particular, policy-makers and citizens).
Organizational effectiveness and performance; challenges and problems in the evaluation of performance of organizations of public interest.
Organizational culture and its measurement; issues of motivation and accountability.
Coordination and collaboration between organizations and within organizations.
Change and innovation in organizations of public interest.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILO)

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

At the end of the course student will be able to...

Understand the main theoretical underpinnings for explaining how organizations proceed, are structured and managed.
Explain what factors influence the effectiveness and performance of an organization of public interest.
Comprehend the peculiarities of organizations of public interest vis a vis firms.

APPLYING KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

At the end of the course student will be able to...

Diagnose the main strengths and weaknesses of an organization based on its design, culture and strategy.
Analyse and draft a performance measurement system for an organization of public interest.
Propose projects of innovation and change for the puprose of improving organizational effectiveness.

Teaching methods

Lectures
Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
Practical Exercises

DETAILS

The course combines face-to-face lectures with class discussions of case studies and incidences, simulations, role-playing and group exercises. These classes allow students to:

Employ theoretical concepts to understand and analyse concrete cases, taken from the reality of organizations of public interest at the international and national levels.
Acknowledge a plurality of viewpoints and develop argumentations in support to a specific solution.

The course is complemented by guest speakers' talks. Guest speakers bring to class and share with students their concrete experience of processes of performance management, change or coordination. After these classes, the instructor and the students have a debrief to discuss lessons learnt.

Assessment methods

	Continuous assessment	Partial exams	General exam
Written individual exam (traditional/online)		x	x
Collaborative Works / Assignment (report, exercise, presentation, project work etc.)	x
Active class participation (virtual, attendance)	x

ATTENDING STUDENTS

The evaluation is based on:

Method	What	To achieve what
Partial written exams with open and closed-ended questions	Mid-term partial exam: first part of the course material (35%); second partial: second part of the course material (35%)	Ability to describe key concepts and theoretical frameworks Ability to summarize the main take-home messages of guest lectures and relate them to the abstract concepts explained during the course Ability to relate concrete case-studies to the abstract concepts and theoretical frameworks explained during the course
Collaborative work (in class)	Two group work sessions (one for each of the course parts) with a written deliverable (20%; the best of the two grades)	Capacity to work in teams for the purpose of elaborating a polcy brief or similar Ability to relate concrete case-studies to the abstract concepts and theoretical frameworks explained during the course
Active participation	Attendance in guest speaker lectures (10%)	To understand the complexities of gov organizations in the words of people working in these organizations Relate guest speakers' experiences to the abstract concepts explained during the course

NOT ATTENDING STUDENTS

The evaluation is based on:

Method

What

To achieve what

General written exam with open and closed-ended questions

On the entire of the course material and readings (100%)

Ability to describe key concepts and theoretical frameworks shared in class and extracted from the readings

Ability to relate the abstract concepts and theoretical frameworks explained during the course to the readings

Teaching materials

ATTENDING STUDENTS

Selected exemples:

Peters G. Politicians and bureaucrats in the politics of policy-making. (pp 256-282) in Bureaucracy and Public Choice, 1987 (Sage)

Schein E.H. Coming to a new awareness of organizational culture. Sloan Management Review, 1984, 65-78.

Joyce P. Strategic management in the public sector 2015 (Routledge)

Bouckaert G. and Van Dooren W.

Performance measurement and management in public sector organizations. (Chapter 11 pp151-164) in Public Management and Governance, 2009 (Taylor & Francis)

Rogers, E. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations (The Free Press), 5th edition