Purpose
This course is designed to teach the elements of Collaborative Governance. Collaborative governance is an increasingly prominent, if not the dominant, frame for public administration today. Within the umbrella of collaborative governance, the terms collaboration, partnership, and network are used to describe the sharing of information, resources, activities, and capabilities by more than one organization whom work together to address collective objectives
This course will introduce you to the rationale and framework collaborative governance, explore case studies where this has been effective and not, and learn/apply the skillsets necessary to manage collaborative arrangements.
Course Description
Organizations across all sectors increasingly respond to complex problems through involvement in networks and a variety of inter-organizational responses which potentially offer innovative and flexible responses. Unfortunately, managing networks is not necessarily the same as managing a single organization. Cross-sectoral collaborations are often complex arrangements. Over time, they develop their own unique cultures and require interpersonal competencies to perform effectively in a context that normally lacks a hierarchical distribution of authority. Participants in these arrangements are challenged to think critically about policy and process issues and lead efforts to create a culture that facilitates building an innovative capacity that is essential for the intersectoral arrangement. This course will address these competencies and be guided by the objectives specified below.
Learning Objectives
- Analyze the institutional and stakeholder context of public problems.
- Compare the structure, procedures, and goals of various types of intersectoral collaboration such as advisory committees to networks.
- Judge whether collaborative strategies are appropriate in a given context, and articulate arguments for and against using collaborative versus other approaches to improve public administration or policy outcomes.
- Develop skills for designing, leading, managing, facilitating, and evaluating collaborative processes.
- Develop skills for consensus building and negotiation in collaborative contexts.
- Increase capacity to work through ambiguity and complexity in public issues.
- Practice and refine written and verbal presentation skills.