Strategic Management in Public Sector

This subject introduces students to a strategic perspective on the management of change and reform within the contexts of the public, private and non-for-profit sectors in Australia and internationally. In this subject, students will explore strategic management tools and techniques, and how they can be adopted by public managers to enhance the performance and achieve the desired outcomes of their organisations. The subject adopts a multi-dimensional approach to understanding and analysing organisational change and public management reforms, and how strategic planning and thinking could be used as methods to affect change within organizations. Students will first explore the systems that govern public/private and not-for-profit organisations and other macro-level factors that affect their operations. Students will then investigate day-to-day activities of public managers and other micro-level factors shaping the organisational structures and operations, including leadership skills, power dynamics organisational conflict and politics as well as the complexities and factors that affect organisations as they evolve and operate in complex organisational fields. These analytical and practical skills will enable students to design strategic objectives to guide organisational change and reform.