Australia's Public Sector Management Program: A model for connecting current research with public sector managers to co-create public value

All too often, the professional education of public sector managers focuses almost solely on the teaching of traditional managerial skills and strategies; focusing more on administration and leadership at the cost of public... [ view full abstract ]

All too often, the professional education of public sector managers focuses almost solely on the teaching of traditional managerial skills and strategies; focusing more on administration and leadership at the cost of public value (see Quinn, 2016). While this is to an extent an appropriate approach for improving the day-to-day management of existing organisational structures, it stops short of tapping into the creative potential of student public managers to create new sources of value for the public. This has the effect of undermining the ability of public organisations to see a robust return on investment for the cost of sending managers offsite for education (as per Oldfield, 2017). In response to these contemporary calls for improved ways of approaching the education of public management, this article reports on a longstanding public management training program in Australia, the Public Sector Management Program (PSMP). Across its 25 year history, the PSMP has evolved into a Graduate Certificate program that requires its participants, who come from all levels of government, to create public value as part of their learning experience and assessment. The pedagogical design of the course treats student public managers as active creators of public value and stimulates the creation of new initiatives and innovations within participants’ work areas to enhance the delivery of public value through their organisations. The PSMP model for public value co-creation builds on Knassmüller and Veit’s (2016) discussion for contemporary public management education by requiring student public managers to engage in applied work based assessment within their departments and in collaboration with their organisational sponsors. In this way, students’ are required to reform or create new sources of public value by way of interventionist strategies that are part of the PSMP assessment regime – embedding public value co-creation into the very fabric of the PSMP’s pedagogy. Further, the visibility and value delivered by students’ projects to their respective departments enables their senior managers to more easily manage the balance between resources invested in public sector education and improved creation and delivery of public value. By reporting on the program design and engagement of students in applied projects created through the PSMP, and the potential impact on Australia’s public service, this paper will demonstrate the utility of this exemplary pedagogical design for teaching and learning public management, and for its practice.