Teaching

Collaborative Goverance (Master Public Administration)

This course builds on the core theoretical principles and historical development of collaborative governance and explores different collaborative governance practices. The course addresses the unique role of public organizations when managing collaborations with e.g., private and nonprofit organizations. Throughout the course students will familiarize themselves with different types of collaborative governance (e.g., (regional) intergovernmental authorities, cross-sector partnerships, deliberative forums, participatory planning, stakeholder advisory groups). The course materials comprise of theoretical and empirical research, combined with case studies.

Leadership in Organizations (Master Public Administration)

The specialisation course Leadership in Organizations teaches you how leadership can facilitate the organisational capacities that government agencies need to successfully address societal challenges in the 21st century. Contemporary societies are increasingly complex, diverse and turbulent. It repeatedly becomes clear that government is too bureaucratic and rigid to address societal problems in an effective and responsive manner. Leadership in organisations is not aimed at directly solving societal problems, but rather facilitates fundamental organisational processes on which effective organisational conduct depends. Such processes include the management of innovation and organisational change, the creation of safe and inclusive working climates in which employees learn from mistakes and in which the best ideas can flourish, the motivation of employees so that they place citizens’ interests over bureaucratic rules, and the design of teams in which highly skilled professionals exchange knowledge and solve complex problems together.

This course provides an interdisciplinary perspective on the main leadership theories and concepts, and applies these to the specific context of the public sector. The course provides you with a highly practical insight into the workings of leadership in organisations, and you are challenged to apply the core principles of leadership theory to problems that government agencies face in practice.

E-Prospectus Leiden

MAN 676: Behavioral Public Administration 

Behavior-oriented research approaches (i.e., experiments) received considerable attention throughout the last decase, especially in the fields of public managment and oublic administration. Experiments were used extensively to harness their ability to examine causal relationships and to reduce limitations of other research approaches (e.g., surveys). This course offers a specialization in behavior-oriented research approaches. Thereby, students will learn to understand research designs and interpret empirical results. The course aims to strenghten critical thinking about experiments, enabling students to consider strengths and weaknesses of different research designs. Furthermore, student will be able to develop an experimental research design in the field of public management. 

Syllabus (German)