Master's courses (outline)

Foundations of Public Management (English)

The ability to lead an organization, make things happen, and achieve change are among the fundamental skills to contribute to the development of an organization. This course addresses a number of concepts that are used to lead organizations and shape change. The objective of this course is to provide you with an understanding of core issues and problems in the field of public administration management. You should be able to understand and integrate the special framework and characteristics of public administration for management and recognize basic concepts and models for analyzing the respective management issues. In the progress of the course, students should be familiar with, be able to classify, and be able to carry out practice-oriented problem formulations and analyses and scientific questions and analyses related to the subject area.

Organizational Change in the Public Sector: Theories and Practice (English)

The starting point for the seminar “Organizational Change in the Public Sector: Theories and Practice” is an in-depth examination of key organizational theory approaches. The key concepts and core statements of the respective theories are then applied to aspects of public management, both to illustrate the theories and to discuss their explanatory power with regard to change in public organizations. The aim is to understand the meaning and purpose of theories in the context of research work and to become familiar with possible theories for your own master's thesis.

The module, "Modernization in the Public Sector," covers selected topics related to the management and steering of public organizations and their service provision. Seminars in this module focus on comprehensively analyzing reform movements and patterns, as well as management issues at the organizational interface between administration and cross-organizational topics.

Selected Research Topics Public Management (English)

Evidence-based work is particularly important for social scientists, who deal with complex social problems (in the public sector). Such work can increase the likelihood that methods and principles used in practice will have the desired effect, improving the quality of public services for people, who are often in vulnerable and precarious situations, or organizational measures such as HRM. In this course, we will learn about the parts of a research paper. We will learn how to read a scientific article and how to critically evaluate published studies.

Science Meets Practice: Key Issues in Public Management Through Dialogue (German)

The efficient and effective use of limited economic, political, and legal resources in public organizations is a classic core topic of public management. This topic is not only relevant for understanding public management, but it also represents a central subject of complex change processes. This course will examine key topics in resource management. In particular, it will focus on selected areas of reform approaches in financial and human resources management. The course will discuss options for overcoming the associated challenges. These considerations will be framed by the question of how public organizations can manage their resources in an integrated manner. The course is designed so that students talk directly with University of Potsdam alumni and our chair's external partners. They work together to address and reflect on issues in public management.

The chair's research projects let students solve a specific problem in a practical way. The goal is to teach students to use scientifc methods to study real problems in public management and come up with the right solution. The goal is for students to do research, collect data, and develop ideas mostly on their own. By participating in a research project, students learn to get an overview on the academic literature on a specific aspect of a topic, research relevant information, and critically reflect on and empirically examine assumptions and opinions.

Practice-oriented projects give students a special chance to work with different partners on real-world projects and learn more about public management. In the project course, students act as management consultants. They apply empirical methods, presentation techniques, and other skills in cooperation with external partners. The external partners benefit from the students' ideas and show them how the topics in the field of public management are useful in the real world.

In the colloquium, students whose theses are or will be supervised at the chair are given the opportunity to present their projects. The aim is to discuss the topic, question, methodology and, if applicable, results of the respective project through feedback from fellow students and supervisors, to clarify open questions and thus to accompany the writing of the thesis or the corresponding research process. In addition, the knowledge of the students on topics of scientific work, such as citation and plagiarism, and on methodology, such as formulation of a research question, conception of a research design, or various survey methods will be refreshed.

Courses Summer Term 2026

• Organizational Change in the Public Sector: Theories and Practice
• The Anatomy of a Research Paper: A Journal Club Lab
• Public Management Research Project: Citizen Experience of Digital Administration in Brandenburg

Courses Winter Term 25/26

• Foundations of Public Management
• Ressourcenmanagement in der öffentlichen Verwaltung
• The Algorithmic State: Current Research and Practice
• Budget consolidation strategies for local government

Courses Summer Term 2025

• Organizational Change in the Public Sector
• Strategic Management in the public sector
• New Work: Neues Arbeiten und Führen in digitalisierten Arbeitsstrukturen

Courses Winter Term 24/25

• Foundations of Public Management
• Ressourcenmanagement in der öffentlichen Verwaltung
• Projektkurs Public Management: Grundlagen und Methoden des Prozessmanagements im öffentlichen Sektor 

Courses Summer Term 2024

• Modernisierung im öffentlichen Sektor - Organisationstheorien
• Modernization in the public sector - Strategic Management
• New Work: Neues Arbeiten und Führen in digitalisierten Arbeitsstrukturen

Courses Winter Term 23/24

• Foundations of Public Management
• Projektkurs Public Management mit der Investitionsbank des Landes Brandenburg
• New Work: Neues Arbeiten und Führen in digitalisierten Arbeitsstrukturen
• Research Project Public Management: Digital transformation in local government
• Ressourcenmanagement in der öffentlichen Verwaltung

Courses Summer Term 2023

• Experiments in Public Administration and Management
• Modernisierung im öffentlichen Sektor - Organisationstheorien
• New Work: Neues Arbeiten und Führen in digitalisierten Arbeitsstrukturen
• Projektkurs Public Management mit der Investitionsbank des Landes Brandenburg

Courses Winter Term 22/23

• Foundations of Public Management
• Ressourcenmanagement in der öffentlichen Verwaltung
• New Work: Neues Arbeiten und Führen
• Projekt Public Management: Zukunftsszenarien der digitalen Verwaltungseinheit
• Public Management Research Project: Looking Behind the Curtain of Big Data Buzzwording

Courses Summer Term 2022

• Modernisierung im öffentlichen Sektor - Organisationstheorien
• Modernization in the public sector - Strategic Management
• Projektkurs Public Management: Prozessmanagement in der öffentlichen Verwaltung
• Public Management Project: Positive Management Challenges
• Public Management Research Project: Beyond the usual suspects

Courses Winter Term 21/22

• Foundations of Public Management
• Ressourcenmanagement in der öffentlichen Verwaltung
• Verwaltungsportale
• Projektkurs Public Management: Positive Management
• Lehrforschungsprojekt Public Management: Datenerhebung

Courses Summer Term 2021

• Modernization in the public sector - Strategic Management
• Projektkurs Public Management

Courses Winter Term 20/21

• Foundations of Public Management
• Ressourcenmanagement in der öffentlichen Verwaltung
• Projektkurs Public Management
• Lehrforschungsprojekt Public Management

Courses Summer Term 2020

• Modernisierung im öffentlichen Sektor - Organisationstheorien
• Modernization in the public sector - Strategic Management
• Projektkurs Public Management

Courses Winter Term 19/20

• Foundations of Public Management
• Ressourcenmanagement in der öffentlichen Verwaltung
• Projektkurs Public Management: Wissensmanagement
• Lehrforschungsprojekt Public Management: Public Encounter

Courses Summer Term 2019

• Modernisierung im öffentlichen Sektor - Management der digitalen Transformation
• Modernization in the public sector - Strategic Management
• Projektkurs Public Management
• Lehrforschungsprojekt Public Management: Innovations in Public Services Design and Delivery