MSc Public Policy and Management with Placement Year

This module will cover many aspects of public governance, accountability and transparency. We will start the course by looking at the systems and processes of government, at the differences and relationships between the public and the private section, and at public policy decision-making. We will turn our attention, then, to issues that arise from stakeholder management and risk management in government. After the Reading Week, we will pay attention to issues related to fraud and corruption, internal control systems, auditing, ethics and integrity in the public sector. We will conclude the course by looking at the role of policy and programme evaluation in government.

The public sector is going through substantial change. We first saw a desire to scale down the scale and scope of the public sector, with an emphasis on privatisation and “downsizing”. While these processes continue around the world, more recently we also see a desire to improve the capabilities of the public sector, often described in terms of capacity building, or institutional or sectoral development. This in turn leads to significant changes to, and within, individual public sector organisations. New organisational forms have emerged. For example, public sector service organisations are no longer conceived of solely as large scale, rule bound bureaucracies. Although there are still plenty of these, alongside them we find smaller, decentralised organisations, sometimes with a short lifespan, sometimes shifted to the private sector, or at least allegedly more “market oriented”. At the same time, new managerial processes associated, for example, with human resource management or management information systems have been introduced. Whether managers in the public sector approve or not of the underlying factors that have brought about such change, or of the specific organisational changes introduced, nonetheless they are responsible for dealing with these changes at an organisational level. This module is about how managers understand and implement organisational change, thereby helping them to fulfil their responsibilities.

We live in an era of frequent and sometimes radical change in what governments do and how they are organised to do it. Sometimes the changes are generated within countries as responses to social, political and economic developments and sometimes they originate outside the country. The purpose of this course is to provide an analytical framework for understanding public policy and management in a variety of historical and comparative contexts. It will give you the means to make your own judgements about appropriate ways to make public policy and organise and deliver public services. The contents of the course include attention to different kinds of governments and rationales for intervention of the state in the economy and society, the process of policy-making, policy implementation and policy evaluation, the various forms in which public services can be organised and the principles and tools for aligning the behaviour of individuals to the pursue of public interest, decentralisation and change management.

The advances in digital technologies resulted in various opportunities and threats to existing economic and societal systems. More specifically, digitalisation restructures policymaking processes, regulatory governance, and poses significant structural challenges to public administration. Besides, the rise of blockchain technology and distributed electronic ledgers add another dimension with the emergence of cryptocurrency and cryptoassets and their regulation. In this context, this module examines the key concepts and theoretical frameworks at the intersection of digital government and regulation. The module begins with presenting the key implications of digitalisation and the rise of disruptive technologies for public administration and public policy. Next, the module studies blockchain infrastructure, regulation of disruptive technologies, fintech and regtech, and finally cryptoassets and central bank digital currencies

Fiscal governance consists of the systems, processes and tools that ensure the prudent management of financial resources in the public sector. Fiscal governance is crucial to the long-term prosperity of countries as it relates to fundamental policy choices that are made about taxation, public spending and public debt. In today’s sophisticated economic and institutional conditions, fiscal policies are made through complex interactions between central governments, central banks, sub-national governments, supernational organisations, the financial sector. At the same time, inclusiveness in budgeting processes (e.g., citizen participation, gender equality in budgeting) and crisis preparedness (e.g., climate change, man-made disasters) have also become crucial. In this context, this module examines the key concepts, tools and theoretical frameworks of public financial management. The course begins with presenting what public financial management, main theoretical frameworks and the tools of public financial management. The course then proceeds with the political and administrative dimensions of public financial management. Empirically, the course will look at various current debates on fiscal governance, from the choice about what to tax and how much, to the relationship between public debt and economic growth, to the advantages of accrual accounting in the public sector. In classes, students will be required to analyse and present assigned case studies. Students will be expected to participate actively, where they will develop skills and capabilities about applying theories and methods to tackling fiscal governance issues.

The aim of this module is to introduce the philosophical, theoretical and practical bases of conducting academic research.

This module is designed to develop cultural intelligence through a highly practical approach to enhance interpersonal and intercultural communication skills for future career in international teams and global business environment. The body of the module examines the fundamental concepts of cultural, assesses the impact of cultural values in intercultural business environment and explores the the impact of cultural difference on international team effectiveness, business negotiations, communication, and personal presentation.

The aim of this module is to introduce the key concepts of Human Resource Management (HRM) by examining the evolution, functions and processes of HRM within a theoretical and ‘best practice’ context. The module then focuses on HRM from a global perspective and assesses the operation of HRM across distinct cultural and business contexts.

The business world has traditionally relied on accounting and finance practitioners to provide a summary of business performance in form of financial statements at regular intervals. Also, quantitative business intelligence has traditional being an important field in accounting and finance.
While these two roles continue to be important, there is marked change in their nature, frequency, and potentials given the exponential growth in unstructured data. Consistent with Moore's Law, there's also an exponential increase in computing power. The current business environment, therefore, requires managers to know data analysis and programming to make sense of the huge volume of data. The module, therefore, complements other modules on the programme, such as financial accounting and financial statement analysis, management accounting, and applied econometrics.

This postgraduate module on Project Management provides students with an in-depth understanding of essential techniques and methodologies utilized in modern project management settings. Students will explore the five key phases of project management: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and control, and closure.

The PG Placement module provides students with an opportunity to apply the academic knowledge they have gained in the first taught portion of the degree programme in a practical, professional setting. The yearlong placement will enable students to develop their own work practice, teamwork and collaboration skills, critical analysis, problem solving, autonomy, and specific skills relevant to the host organisation.
Following the taught element of the PG Programme, students will undertake a 10-12 month placement in an organisation. Upon completion of the placement, students will work on the dissertation or final project, applying the practical skills they have developed during the placement.
You will be expected to secure the work placement yourself, to be approved by the academic department. The SOAS Careers team are on hand to help you with your CV, interview skills and finding the right organisation for you.

The Practical Industry Project has an embedded Practera Virtual Industry Experience component that sits at its centre, offering studens the opportunity to get valuable real-world industry experience through working in a team on a real-world client brief and then developing this further through an individual assessment component. The Practera experience which sits at the centre of this module involves students working in groups of 5-6 students on.a specific client brief. The managing of this portion of the module is entirely handled by Practera using their own management platform where students will be supervised and group meetings as well as client meetings take place. Students work on the group project will be monitored by Practera, working closely with the module convenor.

This module is a final culminating piece of work for MSc programmes. It is an extended work of 5,000 words (excluding the Bibliography and other items listed in the Word Count and Marking of Overlength Coursework Policy as falling outside the word count), based on an original piece of research undertaken by the student on a topic relevant to the aims and objectives of the MSc programme. The module brings together theory, method, collection and analysis of empirical evidence in a small-scale research project, the findings of which are analysed and critically discussed.  The project typically involves addressing an issue of both theoretical and practical relevance. It will entail the collection of primary and/or secondary data (of quantitative and/or qualitative sorts) through various means (such as, for example, interviews, focus groups, surveys, datasets, and simulations) and their analysis, as agreed with the supervisor.

The dissertation project brings together theory, method, collection and analysis of empirical evidence in a small-scale research project, the findings of which are analysed and critically discussed. The project typically involves, in addition to research of academic literature, the collection of primary and/or secondary data (of quantitative and/or qualitative sorts) through various means (such as, for example, interviews, focus groups, surveys, datasets, and simulations) and their analysis, as agreed with the supervisor.