Questions to guide your weekly preparation will be added thoughout the semester. Continue to refer to this syllabus online.
Organization theory helps the public adminstrator solve everyday problems.
Compare and contrast the traditional and the emerging paradigms in public organizational theory. Understand the uses of metaphor in thinking about organization theory and be able to apply several specific metaphors to case studies of organizations demonstrating different ways to understand and explain and solve problems about the case. Compare and contrast different theoretical approaches or models to organizational theory including, but not limited to, the rational model, organizational humanist models, policy models, action theory or hermeneutic models, public choice models, reinvention models, post modern perspectives. Communicate in oral and written form the ambiguities and complexities of modern organizations, but also communicate in analytical clarity simplifications that help us understand aspects of organizations and the human interactions within them. Place reform efforts in public organizations into theoretical perspective.