Master of Public Administration (MPA)

Global demographics are continually changing and are now seeing an increasingly ageing population in many (but not all) countries. Put this together with changes to pension ages and age discrimination legislation and it means that in the future you will be working with many more older colleagues than has been the case to date. In this module, you will evaluate both the challenges and opportunities for business and management that come with increasingly ageing societies in the 21st Century. They will include ageing-related issues at the individual, organisational and societal levels, for example: creating novel and more flexible pension arrangements; innovative marketing to target older consumers; managing more flexible working patterns towards retirement; enabling more inclusive work environments by supporting workers with age-related health issues; and opportunities for career development in older life including starting a business. You will explore ways in which organisations and those working in them can adjust to changing needs in response to a shifting age demographic in the UK and elsewhere in the world.

With many industries generating huge volumes of data almost continuously the challenge for these industries is understanding how this data can be utilised for developing organisational value. This module introduces the field of Big Data, sources, management and visualisaiton. The module will evaluate and consider a range of features in the area, and provide opportunity to work with multiple online and offline data sets, investigate ethical issues around the data and explore different data collection strategies. Experience in these areas gives a holistic overview of organisational challenges and an informed perspective in decision making through the utilisation of big data.

In contemporary workplaces and society at large, people matter. Organisations want to be successful in their chosen field and sector but today, more than ever emphasis is placed on how they gain this success. This module will therefore consider how sustainable success is delivered through strategic and responsible management of people. The module will explore a wide range of organisations and consider how responsible people practices encourage commitment and improve performance in the challenging environment which organisations exist.

Strategic communication has become a key variable in the successful implementation of public policies and also in the leadership of all kind of public sector organisations. The success of any public sector entity is often linked both to its communication capacity and to the strength of its policy base and management skills. Democracy is based on the premise of an informed public, so it could be possible to state that public administrators or administrations face a civic duty to provide reliable information to their public, i.e., citizens. Understanding strategic communication in this sector, its implications and limitations, has become an essential aspect of successful careers in public administration. In order to increase public support of new programmes or the usage of public services and products, and also in showing responsiveness to citizens and building trust around public policy decisions, the strategic importance of communication to contemporary public sector organisations is emphasized in this module.

This module aims to explore the nature of strategic management and innovation practice within a range of organisations and across business networks. This includes understanding and exploring strategic formulation and responsible leadership practices in the 3rd Sector (Voluntary and social Enterprises) as well as other public sector bodies. Whilst considering the importance of well-established strategic planning concepts in the so called linear-rational process model, the module will also focus on contemporary concepts such as digitisation, servitisation, digital ecosystems, platforms, business model innovation and disruption - synonymous with more fast moving and complex environments. Hence, the module involves developing a critical understanding of core models of strategy and innovation. The learning programme will deploy a range of cases, simulations and thinking tasks to explore strategic decision making in contemporary organisations.

This module follows on from PROPEL 1 and is similarly focused on enabling learners’ to maximise their professional and personal development, and develop the skills necessary to become continuous learners. Within this module, the focus is on developing knowledge and ability in the areas of self-awareness, planning and undertaking personal and professional development, and improving interpersonal relationships.