Suchergebnisse

The scale and impact of the current global financial and economic crisis affect not just the public and political institutions established to manage the economy, but also those programmes in institutions of higher education which seek to work with professionals, practitioners and decision makers. If we can witness a public crisis of confidence in the capacity of our existing family of institutions to manage the change, then we might expect to observe similar changes in universities, too. This article reflects upon the nature of the relationships between universities (business and management schools) and the wider public and political community. It also attempts to anticipate some of the potential consequences of the crisis in terms of how the academy might reflect upon its assumptions concerning teaching and learning approaches, and expectations within the discipline of public administration. We suggest that the present crisis is an opportunity to think about the curriculum and pedagogic choices we make and to promote a more collaborative approach to learning, drawing upon models of reflection and professional practice to be found across different disciplines including social work and teaching.

PurposeThis paper aims to examine a pan‐regional initiative, The Northern Way. The argument is framed within the on‐going city‐region debate to demonstrate some of the challenges and difficulties of working in collaboration and partnership across associational networks. It seeks to highlight the importance of institutional and local legacies and politics for understanding the nature of this particular form of pan‐regional arrangement.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on existing literature and other secondary source material from policy and guidance documents, participant observation in regional and sub‐regional meetings, and supplemented with primary interview data.FindingsThe Northern Way, promoted by central government to manage decline in the Greater North of England, demonstrated a continued legacy of regional disparities and an attempt to move city actors from inter and intra regional rivalry towards collaboration and partnership. As an associational network, the fluidity of scales and wide ranging social forces impacted on coordination and integration of processes, institutions, plans and strategies. This emergent governance form exemplified institutional turbulence, as powers were re‐configured continuously across scales and, across policy sectors and policy actors. The Northern Way was a very complicated arrangement of networks across regional and sub‐regional territories, and its lack of autonomy from central government hampered its overall effectiveness and strategic approach.Originality/valueThe paper provides a valuable insight for academics, practitioners and policy makers into some of the challenges and difficulties of managing across a pan‐regional associational network. It is original because most of the earlier literature focuses solely on city‐regions rather than a specific pan‐regional initiative such as the one under enquiry here.

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to examine the largely ignored executive development needs of the reformed twenty‐first century public sector by executive education providers in business schools.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is predominantly conceptual exploring the current debates on the effectiveness of public sector management and the requirements for more relevant management and executive education through a literature review. The antecedents of the current position are explored. Hypotheses are developed about the provision of executive education for the public sector within business schools. In the absence of previous investigations in this field, a preliminary survey is conducted employing the Financial Times top 60 ranked executive education, 2006, to test the hypothesis and underpin more in‐depth research.FindingsThe findings demonstrate that almost two‐thirds of the sample did not provide any executive education to the public sector, and most of the provision on offer was for specialised silos within the sector, or borrowed from existing private sector programmes. There was no support found from the sample for public sector new network governance or leadership challenges discussed in the paper. Findings also supported the view that there is a shortage of evidence‐based research for many of the executive programmes that are being offered.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper is the first to explore the status of the field under investigation and provide a conceptual framework; whilst the preliminary empirical research has been an initial surface fact‐finding study to establish the level and size of the problem, this has been achieved. This paper will now underpin a rigorous empirical research programme to explore the subject matter in greater detail.Practical implicationsThe findings support the hypothesis that executive education providers within business schools are failing to address the management development needs of senior executives in the public sector. The paper concludes that there are huge opportunities being missed by business schools both by their management faculty, to investigate and understand the problems of the sector, and by their executive education centres to co‐design and deliver programmes to assist the sector to transform and develop effectively to meet the challenges posed by a more globalized, complex, networked world. The paper invites them to engage.Originality/valueThis paper investigates a subject that has been identified by the Academy of Management as important. It requires further research but has hitherto not received much attention from the research community.