This syllabus is subject to change without notice. Contact the professor for most recent changes.

17-88-603-01 Organizational Environment

Morris Hall 206

Monday 2:00-4:45 p.m.

 

Instructor:      Dr. Cherrington – (Dr. “J”)                                       f:mydocs/course/org_env/S01

Office: 106b Morris Hall           Phone/Voice Mail:  507-389-5031

Office Hours:  These are posted on my office door and also on my web page.

 

E-mail: janet.cherrington@mnsu.edu

Web page:  http://www.intech.mnsu.edu/cherrington

Class electronic bulletin board (address to be announced)

 

Texts:: Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership , Bohlman, Lee G. and Terrence E. Deal, Jossey Bass Publishers, 2^nd Edition, 1997)

 

Quality Management Today:What Local Governments Need to Know, ICMA

 

Reserved Book Readings:  Managing Public Organizations, Jamil E. Jreisat, New York,NY: Paragon Publishers, 1992.   Availability: to be announced:  (Either a copy of excerpts from this book will be made available in the URSI 603 mail slot or the book will be reserved at the library.)

 

Course Purpose:  Interaction between the organization and its environment underline several important distinctions between private  and public sectors.  For example, private sectors objectives are often clearer and less likely to generate conflict.  However, the environment of public organizations includes political, legal, economic, and social elements, which are elusive forces that are not easily identifiable or measurable.  Consequently public sector managers and, particularly those in local government, have less authority, less flexibility, and less decision-making power than their corporate counterparts.  This leads to the question of how local government managers and planners can become more responsive, accountable, innovative, and efficient. The purpose of this course is to explore organizational theories and adaptive strategies in both the public and private sectors in order to assist local government managers and planners in becoming leaders and change agents in their public-sector environment.

 

Course Outcomes:  Upon successful completion of this course, the student should be able to:

 

• Identify how the theory and practice of managing public organizations developed and locate them in a historical time line,
  
  
• Articulate classic approaches to organizational theory/process and synthesize them with the human relations model.
  
  
• Articulate the systems, public-choice, and action theories as well as the neobureaucratic and new public administration perspectives.
• Place major views of organizations into frames and relate them to existing organizational theory.
  
  
• Communicate orally and in writing on current management gurus and how their books apply to emerging paradigms in organizational theory.
  
  
• Work in small groups to analyze case studies and develop diagnostic tools and action-oriented strategies for the local government practitioner.
  
  
• Articulate the key tasks of local government managers/planners in implementing quality management.
  
  
• Identify local governments that have adapted to total quality management (TQM).
  
  
• Apply public management theories to a real-world situations.

 

Course Requirements:  Students will be expected to have read, thought about, and prepared the assigned materials.  You will be expected to engage in class discussion  (to ask questions as well as to answer them) and to work in teams or groups to develop organizational framing skills.  Just as it is hard to learn to play tennis by only reading a book about the sport, it is hard to become a skilled reframer by sitting back, casually reading the text, and hoping that all will fall in place.  Instead students need to work closely with one another in discussing and grappling with the subtle features of organizational reframing.  Therefore, class attendance and participation are important.  This is an interactive class; the instructors reserves the right to have a final exam and determine its point value if class participation is too limited.  Students will also be expected to prepare a summary and lead a class discussion. on a sections of the texts.

 

Written assignments should be done on a word processor and checked for spelling and grammatical errors.  You are asked to staple multiple pages together.  Each page should have your name, section no., assignment description, and date submitted in the upper right corner.  Consecutively number pages after the first one.  Assignments are due as listed and late submission(s) will be subject to a significant point reduction.

 

Returned graded papers and any case studies or exercises should be kept throughout the term in a folder.  This folder is your course portfolio—a record of your progress throughout the class. 

 

Course Grading:

Book Review and Presentation                                                                         30%

Class preparation, leading class reading discussion, small group issue framing     20%

Case Studies                                                                                                                40%

Course Evaluation Questions                                                                                         10%

(to be distributed or posted on course electronic bulletin board)

                                                                                                                                  100%