Course Syllabus

 

SPEA M602

Strategic Management of Public and Nonprofit Organizations

Sean Nicholson-Crotty

 Professor

Email: seanich@indiana.edu

Course Objectives

Public and nonprofit organizations must design and deliver public programs and services with the flexibility, fairness, efficiency, and effectiveness necessary to not only promote the public good, but also to satisfy a diverse group of clients, stakeholders, and political principals. Strategic planning and management is, simply put, the most valuable tool that such organizations have to accomplish this incredibly difficult goal.

This class will provide you with an introduction to that tool. In doing so, it will focus on the questions that organizations must answer if they are set and achieve goals that allow them to thrive and produce public value. A sample of these include: What is the “public good” as we see it? Should we being do something differently in pursuit of it? Who within the organization (or outside of it) should make that decision? How much can we do differently given existing constraints? What should we do differently? How can we make sure that talking about change actually results in change?

At the end of the semester you will not have a canned answer for each of these questions. What you will have, hopefully, is an understanding of the process by which you can go about answering them in the public and nonprofit organizations that you will work in and manage.

 

REQUIRED TEXTS

John M. Bryson. 2011. Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide to Strengthening and  Sustaining Organizational Achievement, 4th Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.ISBN:  978-0-470-39251-5

John M. Bryson and Farnum K. Alston. 2011. Creating Your Strategic Plan: A Workbook  for Public and Nonprofit Organizations. 3rd Edition. Josey Bass. 2011. ISBN 978-0470-40535-2

 

CLASS FORMAT

This is a web-based course and, thus, our interaction will be primarily via the internet.  Our internet exchanges will, for the most part, be asynchronous (that is, not at concurrent times). This format gives you a good deal of flexibility about when you log in and contribute. It also gives you time to prepare thoroughly and reflect about the issues raised in the readings, cases, and exercises. Finally, the electronic format for our interchanges also provides an opportunity for everyone to contribute without the constraints of limited time for in-class discussion and differences in verbal skills.

Of course, in this format, feedback among participants will not be as quick as it is in a face to face discussion. That does not mean, however, that it cannot be as rich. In order to ensure a high level of discussion each of you must ensure that your interchanges with me and your peers are carefully crafted and as comprehensive as possible.

This is a graduate course and I do not think the expectations or advantages should change simple because it is online. Each of you is an experienced professional in a position to be a valuable resource to the remainder of the class. It is important to remember, that you can learn as much from your classmates as you can from me and each of you will be expected to participate in the cases, discussions, and exercises to a level that contributes to that learning.

Most of our interactions will occur in the context of Canvas, a software system that provides a comprehensive set of tools for the creation, management, and viewing of sophisticated world wide web-based teaching and learning environments. After you register, you will receive a password that will give you access to the course materials on Canvas.

 

EXPECTATIONS

Although this course is offered in a distance learning format, it does not alter our basic responsibilities to one another. It is your responsibility to do the following:

  • Be prepared to contribute each week to the online discussions
  • Complete assignments on time
  • Participate in class discussion
  • Inform me of any problem or situation that may be interfering with your learning or performance in the course
  • Provide feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of the course in a professional manner

It is my responsibility to do the following:

  • Provide activities designed to accomplish course objectives
  • Assist in providing an atmosphere conducive to learning
  • Grade and return assignments in a timely fashion and appraise students of their progress on a regular basis
  • Respond to student concerns

 

ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING

 Cases are a key element of your course responsibility. Case work will involve online discussion forums as well as 1 written case analyses prepared by you individually. The purposes of this component of your grade are to: (1) expose you to real situations where particular public management issues must be addressed; (2) provide an opportunity for you to offer rich and thoughtful insights and recommendations; and (3) demonstrate the value of thinking analytically about a management problem.

Participation - 20%  Participation is very important in this class and accounts for thirty percent (20%) of your grade. Your participation grade will depend upon the quantity and quality of your contributions to discussion forums.  The discussion forums will be organized around the readings and case for a given week (e.g., Weeks 1 & 2). This means it will be important for you to login to Canvas early in the week (probably Monday) to make your initial contribution to the discussion. It will be necessary for you to return to the discussion at mid-week and probably again before the discussion ends to review what others have contributed and follow-up with additional contributions.  You can find more information about norms and guidelines about online participation under the Resources tab in Oncourse.

Leading a case discussion – 10% You will be required to lead discussion of two cases during the semester. Sign up for the case discussion you wish to lead in the class (see Week 1). Cases will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.  It is likely that many of you will be paired with another student(s) in leading the discussion.  Do not sign up to share discussion leadership responsibility for a case, however, until at least one person has opted for each of the assigned cases.      

Leading a case discussion will consist of several tasks.  The first is to create the questions that will be posted to the forum to initiate discussion of the case.  You will also have responsibility for offering input during the week to stimulate a constructive and energetic discussion about the issues raised by the case.  This task will be much like what you do each week in the case discussions, but you will have the extra responsibility to keep the discussion on track, connect disparate contributions, and provide perspective for your peers. Another task is to provide a concluding post at the end of the week that offers conclusions regarding the case and the reading(s) that precedes it, and how knowledge from the case contributes to our skills as public managers.  Your grade will be determined by the extent to which your questions and leadership result in a robust discussion of the readings and issues for the week and your concluding post helps synthesize the discussion.     

 

Strategic Planning Exercise – 30% – Choose and describe a public or nonprofit organization. Identify major features of its environment including threats, opportunities. From that analysis identify strategic issues facing the organization and some potential solutions. This should be done in 8 pages. The assessment should generally follow this format:

  1. Background & Brief History of the Organization/Initiative
  2. Brief Description of Current Organizational Context
  3. . Field Analysis
    • Analyze the most important strategic trends in the policy field within which the organization

            operates, including economic and competitive characteristics of the field

 4. Organization Analysis

    • Identify the organization’s/initiative’s most important strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

           Focus your analysis on the parts of the organization that you believe are most essential to its

            success in the field in which it is situated.

5.Identification of strategic issues:

    • What are the 5 or 6 issues that the organization must address if it is to continue fulfilling its missio6. Strategy Development

6. Based on the strategic priorities identified through your organization, develop a set of

recommended strategies that addresses the organization’s weaknesses, builds on its strengths,

and allows it to respond strategically to its external environment.

7. Implementation Steps and Concerns

    • Recommend a set of next steps to implement the strategies proposed. Identify potential

roadblocks to implementation and outline a set of metrics to determine if your strategy

solutions are working.

     8. Brief Description of Alternative Strategies

    • Develop a brief “Plan B” in the event your proposed strategies are rejected by your client

           or fail when implemented.

 Written Case Analysis – 20%  The purpose of this analysis is to dig deeper into one of the cases we discussed during this module. The primary point of the exercise is to develop a deeper understanding of the strategic management issues raised in the case. You should feel free to use the insights provided by classmates in developing that understanding, though you should avoid citing them directly and instead use discussion forum insights as a jumping off point for your own thoughtful synthesis of the readings and the case. Remember, useful readings will often come from multiple topics that we have covered (rather than being limited exclusively to the week of the case you choose). Your analysis, which will be 4-6 pages long should follow this basic format:

  1. Introduction
  2. Description of the events in the case
  3. Description of the major strategic management/planning issues raised by the case
  4. Analysis of the manner in which problems encountered by actors in the case could have been ameliorated by better planning or more strategic management of organizational resources/behavior
  5. Conclusion

Final Exam 20%  – This exam is designed to help you synthesize the material we learned over the course of the semester and apply it in a new setting. It asks you to evaluate and think critically about a case (so the same stuff we do all semester). In my experience, students who conscientiously participate in the class throughout the semester and keep up on other work do great on the exam.

 

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: Introduction to Strategic Management

Required Readings

  • Syllabus
  • FAQs About Online Participation
  • Moore, Creating Public Value Introduction and Chaps 1 & 2

Activities and Deliverables

 

Module 1 : Strategic Planning

Week 2: Why engage in strategic planning; Evolution and Frameworks

Required Readings

Bryson Chap. 1

Osborne & Brown 2005. “The volatile environment of public service organizations”;

Bryson Chap.2;

Activities 

Case Study Discussion: The Columbia Accident.

Week 3: Agreeing on who and how; Assessing the Environment

Required Readings

Bryson Chap 3; Bryson Resource A; Bryson Chap 5;

Activities 

Case Study Discussion: Changing a Hospital's Culture

Week 4: Mission and Mandates

Required Readings

Bryson Chap 4; Goodsell. 2010. Mission Mystique: Belief Systems in Public Agencies. Chaps 1, 2,

Activities

Case Discussion: Casa De Esperanza

Week 5:  SWOT and Identifying Strategic Issues; 

Required Readings

Bryson Chap. 6; 

Activities 

Case Study Discussion: MAYOR SCHELL’S ZERO HOMELESS FAMILY PLEDGE

Week6: Formulating Strategies, Implementation Plans, and Alternatives

Bryson Chap 7; Brown 2010. “The evolution of public sector strategy.”; Alexander 2000. “Adaptive Strategies of Nonprofit Human Service Organizations in an Era of Devolution and New Public Management”

Case Discussion: Assessing the IUB plan

Module 2: Strategically Managing the Internal

Week 7: Strategic Budgeting

Required Reading

TBA; Glassberg, “Organizational Responses to Municipal Budget Decreases”

Activities 

Case Discussion: Managing Cutbacks at the Washington Department of Social and Health Services 

Week 8: Strategic Human Resources

Required Readings

Marler, “Strategic Human Resource Management in Historical Perspective.” ; Clardy, “The Strategic Role of Human Resource Development” ; Eisner et al. “The New Volunteer Workforce” Hager and Brudney, “Volunteer Management Practices and Retention of Volunteers.”

Activities 

Case Discussion: Layoffs in the Public Sector

Deliverables

STRATEGIC ASSESSMENTS DUE ON SUNDAY (7/5)

Week 9: Performance Measurement and Management

Required Readings

Newcomer and Caudle, “Public Performance Management Systems: Embedding Practices for Improved Success” Kaplan “Strategic Performance Measurement and Management in Nonprofit Organizations.

Activities

Case Discussion: Planning for Success in Emerald City

Module 3: Strategically Managing the External

Week 10: Strategic Communication

Required Readings

TBA

Activities 

Case Discussion: Social Media and Planned Parenthood

Week 11: Strategic Collaboration

Required Readings

Milward and Provan 2006. “A managers guide to choosing and using collaborative networks.” {get from the IBM Center for the Business of Government}; Bryson, Crosby, Stone. 2006. “The design and implementation of cross-sector collaborations: Propositions from the Literature”

Activities 

Case Discussion: Collaboration in a Crisis

Week 12: Strategically Managing the Political Environment

Required Readings

Chaps 4 and 5 in Moore, Creating Public Value; Nicholson-Crotty, “Politics, Policy, and the Motivations for Advocacy in Nonprofit Reproductive Health Providers.”

Case Discussion: OneAmerica

Deliverables

CASE ANALYSIS DUE ON FRIDAY (7/31)- but can be turned in anytime during the semester

FINAL EXAM DUE ON FRIDAY (7/31)- but will open on Monday 7/27 and can be turned in anytime during the final week