scholarly journals Understanding the case method: Teaching public administration case by case

2021 ◽  
pp. 014473942110518
Author(s):  
Eckhard Schröter ◽  
Manfred Röber

Case studies provide helpful teaching tools to capture the complexity of administrative problems from an action-oriented perspective. With increasingly complex policy problems at hand, more interdisciplinary, interactive, and discursive approaches to teaching are also in demand. However, the case method offers a broad variety of options for teaching programs, ranging from short case illustrations or vignettes to full-length case studies. Attached to various types of case materials are different didactic approaches that pursue different pedagogic logics and are likely to make different contributions to in-classroom teaching. The case method in teaching public administration, however, comes at a cost and requires extra capacity, higher time budgets as well as new qualifications and roles of teachers plus a good fit of student (self)-selection and teaching objectives. If meaningfully utilized, it enhances our capacity to prepare (future) executives for complex environments.

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-34
Author(s):  
Vishwesh Singbal ◽  
Gajendra K. Adil ◽  
Rakesh Venkitasubramony

Case studies are useful in imparting decision-making skills to students. Warehousing is a critical part of most supply chains, but case studies based on warehousing methods and operations therein are rare. Recognizing the need to bridge this gap, a case study is designed to present a real-life scenario at the carriage repair workshop of Indian Railways. The case study facilitates the learning of students regarding operations in automated warehousing and relevant storage strategies. Additionally, the case encourages the students to explore the use of heuristics and optimization models. This case article highlights the major learning objectives of the case study and discusses the classroom teaching experience. This case can be used in various courses and the case questions can be selected based on the teaching objectives and/or the educational background of the students.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Duiveman

Abstract Cities are turning to urban living labs and research consortia to co-create knowledge that can better enable them to address pervasive policy problems. Collaborations within such practices help researchers, officials and local stakeholders find new ways of dealing with urban issues and developing new relations with one another. Interestingly, success in the latter is often closely related to accomplishing the former. Besides of analysing this phenomenon in terms of learning—as is common—this paper also delves into the power dynamics involved in collaborative knowledge development. This perspective contributes to a better understanding of how puzzling and powering are simultaneously involved in making research relevant to policy-making. By presenting two collaborative research consortia in the Netherlands, we demonstrate how developing knowledge involves both re-structuring problems and the urban practices involved in governing such problems. Collaborative research practices are predominantly concerned with learning as long as restructuring the problem leads to research findings that are meaningful to all actors. Power becomes manifest when one actor insists on restructuring (often reproducing) problems in a manner judged unacceptable by others. Analysis of two case studies will show how the familiar three faces of power express themselves in collaborative knowledge development. It is recommended that these new practices also require methods for better orchestrating power besides a methodology for successful structuring learning through collaborative research practices.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolai Dose ◽  
Felix Wolfes ◽  
Carolin Burmester

With the federalism reform of 2006, the German federal states gained legislative power over their civil servants. This did not only lead to a substantial difference in pay levels but also to fragmented civil service regulations with different degrees of attractiveness. Requests to move to another state have created various problems in the different areas of the civil service. They are partly caused by the fragmented regulations and partly by an informal agreement between the states. By making use of an online survey among human resource managers in the different areas of public administration and 32 case studies of civil servants who either aspire to move to or have moved to another state, this book systematically identifies and analyses civil servants’ motivations for and hindrances to doing so. In this way, it reveals both obstructive and conducive factors which explain mobility. Moreover, the authors put forward some reform proposals.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-11
Author(s):  
Joanna Pyrkosz-Pacyna

The idea for this Special Issue actually originated during a conference devoted to gender equality in business settings: “It’s complicated. Gender balance in leadership” organized in 2018 by Diversity Hub, an organization focused on Diversity and Inclusion. Inspired by Professor Katarzyna Leszczyńska (AGH University of Science and Technology) and supported by Dr Tomasz Dąbrowski (Diversity Hub) the idea of an entire issue of an academic journal devoted to research and case studies on gender equality in science and business came to life. We opened the journal to sociologists, psychologists, cultural studies researchers, anthropologists, journalists and practitioners to share with us their work in this area. We received a broad variety of articles that tackled the notion from different perspectives and chose five articles that in our opinion provide the most interesting and professional contribution to the topic of gender representation in STEM and high business positions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 26-35
Author(s):  
Vladimír Krajčík ◽  
Pavel Vlček

Abstract The article focuses on process management in public administration using the specific case study of the statutory city of Ostrava. Based on the selected part of the PAPRIS methodology, the process management is verified, and conclusions from the application of information system e-SMO ("Electronic Statutory City of Ostrava") are generalized. Ostrava is third the biggest city in Czech Republic with approximately 320 thousand citizen. Article describes experiences with SW implements, which are used for model of process in public administration. Particulary at local authority of Ostrava town. Model of process is a basis for reengineering of process in state administration and preparation for implementation of big information systems. Mapping of process is providing implement and confirmation methodology to identify existing processes. Problem with its using consist in that, senior manager don’t informs, what organization is determination by processes. If are not described in given to organization current processes, or how would have had look new optimum processes, will not endeavour about reengineering successful. Procedural analysis namely offer tool and check methodology to identification current suit („ at") and it is possible him use either as instruction („ how so about to be") for reengineering function handling administrative and self-rule activities. Purpose of the article: The PAPRIS methodology was used when defining the objectives for implementation of the information system for public administration (PAPRIS - Process Approach - Public and Regional Information System). This methodology has been elaborated by one of the authors and published in a very general scheme when solving many case studies (Krajčík, 2006), (Krajčík, 2007), (Krajčík, 2013) (Krajčík, 2014). We assume that the PAPRIS is primarily a methodology with incorporated elements of procedural approach for project management in public administration information systems (PAIS). The specific supporting process of communication between the client and the e-SMO ("Electronic Statutory City of Ostrava") system has been chosen for verification. The model of supporting communication process, created by ARIS tools, is crucial, and the structure of scripts (ICM and IVR) is subsequently made. The aim of this article is to verify that the methodology is sufficient and appropriate to manage such a large project such, undoubtedly, is the e-SMO (Vlček, 2009). Methodology/methods: Defined productive and non-productive processes with their defined process cuts represent a crucial category for the process structure of IS projects. This is fully accepted by the PAPRIS methodology. Process cuts are understood, in the logic modelling according to the PAPRIS methodology, as clearly defined logic directional cuts in three-dimensional space of all project processes. The process set is systemically categorized, in a given logic directional cut, into mutually disjoint process subsets, which are characterized by this particular directional operator. The directional operator always has a clear logical allocation that is based on the construction of a process view. Theoretically, an infinite number of process views can be used. One of the important issues in a methodology for the case studies includes the size of the research sample. It is usually assumed that there is no ideal number of cases and that the number between four and ten usually provides good results. Other authors defining against any quantitative standards for any determination of the sample size of the case studies, since such an approach denies the internal logic of this methodology and the richness of the information obtained from participants in the research. Research which is carried out using case studies does not aspire on compliance with the requirement the representativeness of the sample. (Štrach, 2007). Methodology of case studies is among the established guidelines of qualitative research (Štrach, 2007). Research on using case studies in the last 30 years has seen an extraordinary increase in social-scientific research, including research on business and management (Dul, Hak, 2008). Scientific aim: The essential aim of this study is to describe the way the process cut defines a productive process and non-productive process, in accordance with the PAPRIS methodology using the specific example. While the triggering mechanism of the project production process is an event causing its own production - i.e. the specific output with added value for the customer, the project of non-productive process is caused by the project management event. Therefore, it is caused by the need to control, monitor, track, inspect, evaluate outputs, decide and regulate the project implementation. Findings: Within the support of the communication process, two examples were used to verify the methodology. The global perspective on the process was created in ARIS tools and the communication between the call centre and the client was made in Visio tools. The PAPRIS methodology is based on the concept of process variability, which has been clearly formulated. The fundamental direction of the process development, anticipated changes and the opportunity to react to them in accordance with defined objectives of the PAIS project are guaranteed.


Author(s):  
Adam Crymble

After nearly a decade of scholars trying to define digital work, this book makes the case for a need instead to understand the history of technology’s relationship with historical studies. It does so through a series of case studies that show some of the many ways that technology and historians have come together around the world and over the decades. Often left out of the historiography, the digital age has been transformative for historians, touching on research agendas, approaches to teaching and learning, scholarly communication, and the nature of the archive itself. Bringing together histories and philosophies of the field, with a genre of works including private papers, Web archives, social media, and oral histories, this book lets the reader see the digital traces of the field as it developed. Importantly, it separates issues relevant to historians from activities under the purview of the much broader ‘digital humanities’ movement, in which historians’ voices are often drowned out by louder and more numerous literary scholars. To allow for flexible reading, each chapter tackles the history of a specific key theme, from research, to communication, to teaching. It argues that only by knowing their field’s own past can historians put technology to its best uses in the future.


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