Building on the concept of Public Service-Dominant Logic (PSDL), this article aims to apply the public service-dominant logic to executive education. We argue that fit-for-purpose and effective executive master programs for public managers (EMPA) need to be designed from a public service perspective. Framing executive education as a service enables the enhancement of the effectiveness of public action as a result of inter-organizational capacity and the co-production of learning outcomes. This article is an invitation to teach what we write, to practise what we teach and to teach through practice, which is what a public manager attending an executive program would expect in terms of public service experience. PSDL was applied to the flagship program at SDA Bocconi School of Management for public sector managers in order to produce the first concrete contribution and to illustrate how switching from a product-logic to a service-logic can have a positive effect on executive education, its structure and curricula. By retrospectively applying PSDL in order to investigate any concrete outcome on revising executive education programs, we show that it is possible to generate a concrete impact in terms of participant satisfaction and the perceived long-term added value of the learning experience by focusing on the education outcome, meeting and anticipating the participants’ needs and expectations, and considering the participants as active stakeholders at the heart of the delivery process.

This paper focuses on Denmark’s Master of Public Governance and its assessments and lessons learned. Denmark is seen to have an efficient economy and public sector, a digitalized public service delivery system, and an advanced work–life balance. The Danish government invested substantial resources into developing a Master of Public Governance program – a flexible and modular program for public managers to take over a period of up to six years. The paper focuses on the Copenhagen version of the Master of Public Governance program. More than 1000 public managers from central, regional and local government are now active in pursuing an executive public management education through this program. The development, structure, content and the innovative teaching ideas are presented. The available data, including an official evaluation of the MPG program, is used to assess the program and present some lessons learned. The program has achieved its goals as public managers express satisfaction with the content and the flexible structure of the program, which suited more governance-oriented public managers with a need for strategic-thinking public managers, and has provided them with an opportunity to try out innovative teaching ideas. Lessons learned include the necessity of securing back-up from the government for a program of this considerable size, offering a flexible array of accessible and up-to-date courses and ensuring collaboration between universities offering the program.

Because of their tasks and their high level of responsibilities, leadership aptitudes, besides managerial competences, are key for civil servants who will occupy top positions. The institutions in charge of their training and education must not only provide the leaders of tomorrow with the knowledge and skills they need to do their current job properly; they must also ensure that the leaders have the qualities required for the exercise of their responsibilities at all stages of their professional career. Based on the experience of the French national school of public administration (ENA) and its key role as the training organisation both for pre-service and lifelong learning for French public sector executives, this paper presents the different elements of the French approach for training future government administrative leaders. This comprehensive and integrated strategy takes into consideration the challenges of training for leadership and the needs for a permanent adaptation to the evolution of the administrative environment.

The general practice of civil servant training providers in Hungary is to evaluate their products only through surveying the reaction of participants. The obvious weakness of this practice is that the variance in the level of satisfaction does not necessarily coincide with the positive professional impact that the trainings are aimed to produce. This paper presents the results of an effectiveness assessment survey of a large public ethics and integrity training programme that was delivered to civil servants in Hungary. The trainings examined were delivered by the same methodology but conducted by 26 different trainers for 7362 participants. The assessment was not part either of the original project, or of the training design; it was run as an additional activity. The aim of the survey was to show that even with a simple method, applicable even with weak organizational capacities, information can be produced both for validation and curriculum development. The results prove that the trainings made a moderate but statistically significant impact on participants’ knowledge and attitudes, and most changes happened in the targeted direction. Beyond the validation of the training methodology, the survey also produced information on trainers’ performance and a relatively differentiated picture on participants’ learning that can contribute to the further development of the methodology. Thus, the results prove that even with simple quantitative survey methods, evidence for both validation and learning can be produced. The results also raised some questions for further research.

Current world events demand public affairs leadership training that generates among professionals a sense of capability, agency, and responsibility to engage in complex public problems. In this paper, we describe a unique course operated in the US focused on achieving these learning outcomes. It uses an unconventional schedule and course design that leverages information communication technologies to support learning. Its integrated model combines conventionally distinct courses with a pedagogical approach stressing experiential learning, personal reflection, and critical thinking. The paper describes the teaching practices used in the course, as well as offers three sources of evidence about what results from its implementation.

Many scholars have suggested that public service motivation (PSM) is a defining characteristic of public and non-profit employees. However, interest and motivation alone are not the sole determinates of success in any organization. Employees must also possess the knowledge and skills that will help them accomplish the difficult tasks that arise in their chosen occupation. This study explored the relationship that PSM has to student satisfaction in MPA programs, taking into consideration program climate and number of years of government experience. The findings confirmed that while PSM is related to student satisfaction, this relationship was completely mediated by program climate. The implications of the study are discussed, in particular in terms of the contributions that an environment of support and PSM make on the attitudes of students in MPA programs.

Universities and other higher education institutions in Europe offer a vast and increasing number of academic degree programs in the broad field of Public Administration. A subset of these programs is those offering postgraduate degrees to experienced students being already employed by public or private organisations. These executive programs are designed as long-term trainings for midcareer and executive staff and structured according to the specific demands and needs of their experienced target groups. This article provides a general picture of such academic executive programs in Europe and tries to identify common patterns and divergent features in a cross-national comparative view. It shows common trends of development over time and intends to explain observed commonalities, differences and trends by linking them to different civil service systems and state traditions.

The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which the characteristics of public administration degree programs are related to public service motivation (PSM) using a higher education socialization framework. Using a sample of approximately 500 students enrolled in 26 Master’s degree programs across the country, this study confirms that gender, work experience, core course requirements, service learning opportunities, climate, Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration accreditation, and full-time status were all meaningful predictors of PSM among the students. The implications of these findings are discussed.

The teaching of research methods has been at the core of public administration education for almost 30 years. But since 1990, this journal has published only two articles on the teaching of research methods. Given the increasing emphasis on data driven decision-making, greater insight is needed into the best practices for teaching public administration research methods. This research note attempts to build on these previous articles to offer a new approach to the teaching of undergraduate research methods within a department of political science and public administration. The approach combines traditional approaches to experiential education with a focus on comparison among different methodological tools. Grounded in both learning theory and developmental psychology, the article outlines a research method assignment that encourages comparison and uses focus groups and pre-/post-tests of substantive knowledge to demonstrate learning. Implications and advice for teaching are provided.

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is a pedagogic approach that has developed in response to the demand for integrating education in both school/university subjects and language skills. Our paper is devoted to the implementation of CLIL programmes in Public Administration within a particular sociolinguistic context: that of Russian universities. Using CLIL as a theoretically grounded framework and as an ideological platform of such an introduction, we have described Public Administration students’ and matriculants’ ideas on their current CLIL experience. Data comes from a survey of university students (N = 141) and formalised interviews with St. Petersburg universities’ matriculants (N = 43). We draw the conclusion that their social environment is mainly monolingual and they perform daily communication in Russian. This is one of the reasons to promote CLIL as a strong methodological conception in the practice of teaching Public Administration in English in Russian higher education institutions.

Over the past decades, Public Administration (PA) education programmes in Europe shifted their focus from a predominantly law-oriented approach to a more multidisciplinary, social science and managerial one. This paper deals with the tenacity of traditional, law-oriented PA education programmes that can be found in a limited, but not insignificant, range of countries throughout Europe. The paper has two aims. Firstly, it attempts to test hypotheses which seek to explain this tenacity. Secondly, it wishes to examine the extent to which this tenacity is related to new forms and paradigms of government emerging in certain Central and Eastern European countries, sometimes referred to as "illiberal democracy". The method is a two-case comparative study of Germany and Hungary.

Senior civil servants (SCS) are powerful actors with great responsibilities in the field of policymaking and management. Due to public sector reforms that are New Public Management oriented, specialised education and structured training programmes for (future) SCS as well as fast-track systems for high-potential employees have become increasingly important in many Western democracies over the last two decades. However, in several middle European countries SCS are hardly ever training participants, and furthermore, training systems have not been subject to larger reform efforts. In this article, the training of SCS in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland is explored, and we discuss how the observable patterns of training policies can be explained. We argue that the existence or lack of desired human resource measures such as fast-track programmes might be explained by the dominant cultural orientations in these countries. In order to systematically address, further analyse and account for observations such as the fast-track example, we apply and explore the potential of grid-group typology, developed by anthropologist Mary Douglas as part of the cultural theory approach.

A 2 x 2 matrix identifying four discrete thought processes was presented. The contributions of the first three processes in developing the knowledge base of public administration were detailed as were their limitations. It was argued that the fourth process – insight and its mental powers – builds upon the strengths and overcomes the limitations identified with the first three and provides the appropriate pedagogical focus for developing insight in aspiring scholars. Challenges to public administration teachers and researchers were identified and discussed.

This article discusses the reasons and teaching objectives of an array of new undergraduate courses on public administration and public policy management which have emerged recently in Brazil. While in 2001 there were only two undergraduate courses teaching formal public administration in the country, by 2015, they had risen to 40, and also included more diverse but related courses, such as public policy management, public management, public policy, and other similar ones. If one adds to this figure, distance education, and technological undergraduate courses, the total courses in these areas in Brazil amount to approximately 130 and an estimate of 25,600 students’ enrolments. All these courses are understood as belonging to the same field of knowledge, a statement made public by a national movement of professors, course coordinators, and students that stated the specificities and identity of this field of knowledge. This group became known as "The Public Field" movement, declaring the need for training students and future practitioners or academics within courses that are concerned with the public interest and democratic, and ethical governments. The discussion in the article focuses on two main aspects. First, the institutional and political reasons that opened a "window of opportunity" for these courses to emerge in Brazil. Second, the pedagogical objectives of these courses are discussed, and two experiences of innovative teaching in two Brazilian universities are presented as an example of the training objectives these courses are trying to achieve.

Recent research in public administration on governance, networks, and deliberative democracy, has highlighted the need to develop a skill set in graduates of Public Administration programs that prepares them for the interpersonal and relational challenges of the policy process. The skills needed to manage in increasingly complex and networked policy arenas include: convening and activating participants, group facilitation methods, and negotiation skills among groups with divergent interests. This article explores the use of role playing to develop these skills, and then reports on a recent attempt to incorporate role play into a graduate course in strategic management of public organizations. It was found that the simulation was not immediately salient as students did not fully develop their roles. Several steps were taken to ameliorate this issue and provide insights about how to improve the use of simulations for teaching public administration students.

This article surveys state-owned enterprise director training programmes in Canada at both the national and provincial levels. In Canada director training programmes have emerged to enable good private-sector corporate governance. This trend has been embraced by governments seeking to improve corporate governance among their state-owned enterprises. The article reviews the state of director training in Canadian state-owned enterprises. Considered are the programme delivery models and contents. The article highlights the specific nature of state-owned enterprise boards and how this affects the learning needs of their directors. Accordingly, the article underscores the necessity of providing directors who are new to state-owned enterprises training specific to the public sector. The article concludes by highlighting notable practices and how these may contribute to improving outcomes in public administrations.

Policymakers and academics often hold different assumptions about the policymaking world based on their different experiences. Academics may enjoy enough distance from the policy process to develop a breadth of knowledge and produce generalisable conclusions across governments, while policymakers/ practitioners such as civil servants may develop in-depth expertise when developing policy for a number of years. In turn, both may learn from each other about how to understand the policymaking world. Academic–practitioner seminars and short training courses can help further that aim. Yet, there is a major barrier to such conversations: academics and practitioners may have their own language to understand policymaking, and a meaningful conversation may require considerable translation. The article explores this topic in four main ways. First, it considers the extent to which academic–practitioner discussions still use simple concepts, such as the policy cycle, rejected by policy scholars in favour of concepts explaining policymaking complexity. Second, it identifies a series of relatively simple key tenets, from policy theories designed to explain complexity, to explore the extent to which modern theories can provide straightforward insights to policy practitioners. Third, it considers how those insights, based largely on what governments do, can be used to recommend what they should do. Fourth, it considers how to engage directly with policymakers to encourage intelligent and reflexive policymaking.

It is necessary for public managers to be able to evaluate programmes in the context of complexity. This article offers key learning and reflections based on the experience of facilitating the evaluation of complexity with a range of public sector partners in Scotland. There have been several articles that consider evaluating complexity and theory-based approaches to evaluation; however, the literature is scarce when it comes to actually facilitating such approaches within the public sector. The article discusses the main steps used when facilitating outcomes planning with stakeholders and identifies some key challenges and learning in relation to undertaking this work. The article will be of interest to those that want to know more about the core components of outcomes-based evaluation and, moreover, to those that will undertake this type of facilitation within the public sector as part of organisational development and professional development.

Public administration is a highly diverse and evolving field of scientific inquiry. The study domain is characterised further by often-competing paradigmatic perspectives and seemingly endless teaching modalities. There seems to be an increasing realisation that answers to complex societal challenges cannot be solved within the knowledge frameworks of individual disciplines. As a result, interdisciplinary teaching emerged to expose students to approaches, theories and methodologies from various disciplines of the social and natural sciences, in search of potential answers to these challenges. In spite of the qualities and potential contributions of interdisciplinarity, there may be fewer positive consequences for teaching efforts. This article intends to reflect on the potential consequences, both positive and negative, that interdisciplinary studies have on the teaching of public administration. The article will review the possible advantages or contributions of interdisciplinarity to the teaching of public administration, and reflect on the possibly less-desired consequences of interdisciplinary collaboration on curriculum design and teaching methods.

What is understood by "public administration" in the contemporary UK higher education setting? Is it still being taught and, if so, why? These questions initially appear to be fairly straightforward but any review of the topic quickly poses some rather more tricky areas of enquiry. This article will focus upon three central questions. First, some persistent issues surrounding public administration as a field of research and enquiry provide a problematic start for any discussion: what is meant academically by public administration and does it retain any scholarly meaning, or any disciplinary base(s) that warrants its location in university departments? Is it distinct from public policy and public management or can it now be wholly subsumed within these more readily understood (and more marketable) categories? Second, there are difficult issues around public administration as a field of practice in a highly turbulent public sector world. Public administration (especially in its received meaning from the continental European tradition) was predicated upon stability, structure and law. Contemporary UK public administration is built upon flux and uncertainty. Third, the pedagogic aspects of teaching this elusive area raise significant additional issues, compounded by the differences between teaching a practitioner audience of public administrators (perhaps allied to work-based learning delivery) alongside, or in place of, an academic social or political science audience. Business schools have grown as the main site for such teaching. Differentiated modes of teaching have proliferated while the focus of what is taught has grown more elusive. Teaching public administration starts to look like quite a rich and contested area of academic activity.

Using qualitative methods, this study analysed the process of training needs assessment in the Botswana public service, with special focus on five state sector ministries. It is evident from the research findings that there is little and an unsystematic approach to the needs assessment prior to training. The research further revealed that the seniority principle is a major determination of training needs in the public service which seemingly gives little regard to the manpower training needs. The study has also revealed that public service training is not strategic. Thus, public service training is not directed towards the realization of the public service strategic goals, mission, vision and development plans. This inadvertently compromises the relevance of training and fails to inculcate and nurture those skills that could help enhance performance and productivity. In an attempt to solve the problems identified in public service training needs assessment, the study recommends that a thorough needs assessment should be conducted at organizational, task and individual levels. The seniority principle does not justify training needs and need to be done away with. Finally, the combined use of different needs assessment methods and data sources is crucial to ensure proper needs identification.

The previous article (‘Interactive education in public administration (1): The role of teaching "objects"’) described the benefits of ‘moving from behind the lectern’ to engage in interactive teaching in public policy and administration, and the central role of ‘objects’ in that process. But teaching ‘objects’ can only produce effective results if they are used in a way that achieves learning objectives. Interaction for interaction’s sake is not enough; it must also lead to understanding of new concepts and analytical approaches. Moreover, interactive teaching can be challenging for teachers who mainly use didactic traditional lecturing, since it entails sharing control of the discussion with students. This article explains and justifies a purposeful, structured framework both for stimulating engagement in public administration courses, and for turning that engagement into learning, in a way that provides for the intellectual safety of the teacher and student – which is crucial for enabling participants to take risks in classroom discussions. In the process, the article further addresses the rationale for using interactive and object-based approaches specifically in public administration and related disciplines.

Schools of public policy and administration are increasingly adopting interactive case teaching (long used in business schools) as one of their primary pedagogical methods – not least because of its usefulness in both stimulating engagement by students and helping them turn that engagement into learning. This article and its companion piece (Interactive education in public administration (2): Strategies for teachers) acknowledge and explain this usefulness, but go beyond cases to also include other forms of what we call teaching ‘objects’. Starting with an outline of the educational rationale of interactive teaching, this article explains the nature of ‘objects’, how they enhance learning, their relevance specifically to public policy and administration, and what distinguishes good from poor objects. It focuses primarily on why teaching objects are used. The companion article sets out how to use them, laying out strategies for instructors.

The Trans-European Dialogue in 2013 was dedicated to the revisiting of the research undertaken by György Hajnal in 2003 (Hajnal, 2003) on public administration education in Europe. As part of the preparations to the conference, Hajnal also revisited his research after 10 years. The findings presented on the conference offer a theoretical framework to analyze the Hungarian case of public administration education. The claim is that the Hungarian public administration culture is still part of the "legalistic" model within the discipline. This article provides an analysis on the current institutional settings of public administrative education and also a content analysis on the curriculum of BA and MA courses in order to determine if Hajnal’s 2013 findings are still valid. In order to verify Hajnal’s 2013 findings, the article examines the contents of the current public administration programs and also formulates the latest steps for further development. In addition, the article offers an outline on being "legalistic" in terms of public administration education. Although the article states that the basic framework of public administration education – as a major driver of public administration culture – is still dominantly legalistic. It also introduces the ways in which the new public administration education system have tried to change the content of its degree programs and how it has tried to have an impact on the entire public administrative system to move from procedural orientation to a more solution-oriented mindset.

This article points to the adverse circumstances in which public administration education and training has to take place in developing countries, more specifically in South Africa. This is especially seen in the combination of scarce resources and rapidly increasing enrolment. The consequence thereof is that the didactics of education and training suffer in becoming characterized by mere teaching instead of the promotion of learning.

The article points to a serious dilemma especially faced under such difficult circumstances, namely that a curriculum either addresses all the subjects relevant from an academic perspective and conform to international accreditation criteria, and becomes deficient in the way all these topics are taught—or opts to prioritize topics based on a skills-needs analysis and optimizes the way in which this limited number of topics is learned.