Academic executive programs in public administration and management

Introduction

Universities and other higher education institutions contribute to the education and training ¹ of future professionals in the private as well as in the public sector. They offer various study programs for young school graduates but also for candidates having already several years of professional experience. This is also the case in the broad field of Public Administration and Public Management (PA/PM). Apart from universities, professional schools and academies, owned either by government or by private providers, offer training programs for experienced public sector professionals.

The main research interests of this article are to take stock of academic PA/PM executive programs and to study the educational “landscape” of such programs in Europe. The paper intends to analyse executive programs with a view on the institutions offering them, on the target groups, the contents, didactics and also on the consequences graduates of the programs may expect at the employers side. The article starts with discussing relevant general features of the underlying civil service systems and of varying educational traditions in Europe. It continues by presenting general features of midcareer and executive programs. Thereafter, the article will present some examples of academic executive programs in a series of European countries and identify certain commonalities and differences of their structures and contents. The results will be analysed and interpreted and finally some conclusions and lessons learned will be drawn.

Education and training in the context of different national civil service systems

European governments have different civil service systems. One dimension of them is the recruitment mechanism: civil servants can either be recruited for a long-term perspective to follow a certain career path (career system) or they can be recruited for a specific position in administration (position system). In the first case candidates are selected in an early stage and receive a considerable amount of “pre-service” education because they usually remain for a long time in the civil service (often with life-long tenure) and they need appropriate competences not only for the initial position at the beginning of their occupation but also for the next steps of their career ladder. In contrast, civil servants in a position system remain for some time at the post for which they were recruited. After that they may apply for another post, perhaps in another public sector organisation or even in the private sector. Consequently, their education is usually less extensive and covers primarily the task requirements of the specific job. Currently, about two-thirds of the European Union (EU)-member states has a predominant career system (Demmke and Moilanen, 2010: 166).

In later stages of their career path civil servants in a career system need a less comprehensive training, primarily some adjustment, refreshment and extension of their competences. Only if they are moving upwards from one service class to the next higher one, they may receive again substantial training. On the other hand, in-service training for servants in a position system will be more comprehensive at later stages of their professional development. Consequently, midcareer or executive programs can be considered as being more relevant for candidates in a positional setting and for career-based servants intending to apply for a higher service class, while such programs may be less important for “normal career civil servants”.

Civil service systems in Europe also differ with regard to the degree they are separated from the general labour market and the whole employment system of the respective country. Particularly countries with a Napoleonic state tradition in Southern Europe (but also other continental European countries and new EU member states) have a civil service system which is strictly separated from “the rest of society” (Horton, 2011: 42). Here, the public labour system with its regulations and features is detached from the general labour system of the private sector (e.g. wages, health care support and pension system). Consequently, also the whole educational system is separated and follows its own rules and procedures. Therefore, patterns of public sector education are in many cases incompatible with general education profiles in the same country: future civil servants have to study at specific government schools or at least have to pass specific training programs and state exams. As a consequence, public sector employees only have limited opportunities to move to the private sector. Hence, fluctuation between the public sector and the private sector is quite limited in these countries. In the Nordic countries, in the UK, Ireland and in The Netherlands, the educational and recruitment patterns of the civil service are more congruent with the general labour system and consequently there is more interchange and mobility between the sectors.

The different civil service systems are a result of diverging state models which shape the whole politico-administrative system of a country and which have consequences for basic educational contents (Bekke et al., 1996; Kickert, 2008: 5–8; Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2014). Countries following a Napoleonic or Germanic Rechtsstaat model put much emphasis on legal and formal aspects of their government machinery and consequently recruit appropriately educated staff. Countries in line with the Scandinavian or the Anglo-Saxon state model have a less legalistic administrative system and are thus more open in their requirements concerning the recruitment of civil servants. The different state models and civil service systems are to some extent mirrored in the educational profiles of PA/PM-degree programs in Europe. As Hajnal showed some years ago (Hajnal, 2003) and recently revisited (Hajnal, 2015), three major country clusters of civil service education and training can be differentiated:

a “legal country cluster” dominated by law issues (e.g. in Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Greece)

We will discuss later to which extent these clusters are also visible in the field of executive education.

Mapping key features of executive programs for public sector professionals

Variants of professional education differentiate with regard to a set of variables: at first, education can take place before starting a profession (pre-service education) and/or in the course of a professional life (continuing or in-service education). Secondly, the length of education can vary from short seminars to multiannual programs. Thirdly, the link between educational input and actual job requirements may be more or less direct (education on-the-job versus off-the-job). Fourthly, education can be provided by various institutions, e.g. by universities, by public non-academic training institutions like government schools and academies, and by various private for-profit and not-for-profit organisations offering training to civil servants.

In this article, we particularly deal with executive academic programs for professionals, i.e. for professionally experienced trainees who are employed in the public sector, who want to move to this sector or who are interested in PA/PM competencies because of other reasons ² . Such “in-service” programs are either offered by universities and other higher education institutions or by publicly owned government schools and academies.

With regard to existing professional experience we can basically distinguish among three different target groups of professionals (Van der Meer and Ringeling, 2010: 78):

Young professionals coming from another occupational field without specific PA/PM-competences (e.g. from engineering or social work) who want to receive an academic degree to enter the civil service (“young professionals”);

Such programs are usually offered in an open mode, i.e. universities organise a program and admit candidates who meet the entry requirements. Another mode is in-house programs which are designed for the specific needs of the employees of a particular (in our case: public sector) organisation. Such commissioned programs have the advantage of being tailored according to the specific requirements of a single ministry, agency or municipality and they may also result in greater commitment of participants. On the other side, such programs offer less variety of audience and also may carry the risk of expanding intra-organisational tensions into the classroom (see the experiences from Denmark in Majgaard, 2015).

Executive degree programs in public administration in Europe may not only be attractive for domestic students but also for those coming from abroad. This is particularly the case in countries like the United Kingdom where professional students from various developing or newly advanced countries (e.g. China) are frequently studying such programs. The same applies for France with regard to professionals coming from francophone African countries.

Academic programs for experienced professionals can be awarded either with a certificate (e.g. a diploma) or with a Master degree. For the latter, some years of professional practice (often: three years minimum) and a first academic degree are required as entry condition. In most cases, such professional Masters are based on a workload of 60 Credits according to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS), which does not correspond with the general “Bologna logic” where a Master usually requires 120 ECTS. Thus, candidates with some years of work experience need a lower workload as young students for acquiring a Master degree.

The role and relevance of professional programs: A comparative view on selected European countries

In this section we provide an overview of academic executive programs in PA/PM offered by universities and by government schools in a number of European countries. So far evidence on such programs is very limited, thus the following section provides only some first evidence but is certainly not complete ³ .

North-Western European countries: in Great Britain young graduates entering the higher civil service never needed specific pre-entry education. Some on-the-job training was considered as being sufficient (Horton, 2011: 49). Nevertheless, over a long period the government has operated a civil service college, later called school of government. More recently, after closing down this school, the British government has almost left the market for executive training by outsourcing it to private providers. Civil servants interested in enhancing their competences are choosing one of the many executive programs offered by universities, e.g. in general PA/PM, in public financial management and in various sector-specific specializations, often also in online mode. For many years, the academic degree of a “MPA” (Masters in Public Administration) was quite well established in the UK (although in a less homogeneous pattern than in the US), but more recently the “MBA” (Masters in Business Administration) has become more attractive as a label (Murdock et al., 2014: 74) with obvious consequences for the content of such programs: the influence of public policy and administration decreased while general management concepts and tools became more prominent. Master programs in the UK are highly attractive for an international audience, e.g. from India or China. Several university departments sell such programs very successfully on the international education markets. Consequently, such programs put less emphasis on specifics of the UK government system and may be less attractive for British professionals.

Denmark (as an example for the situation in the Nordic countries): the civil service system is more position-based and recruitment and training are strongly decentralised. Although the proportion of economists and social scientists in the Danish civil service has increased over time, legally trained senior staff is with 44% still dominant (Hansen, 2013). Executive education is most notably offered by Danish universities. Two university consortia offer since 2009 each a Danish language “Master of Public Governance” (MPG) for mid-career civil servants: the Copenhagen Business School and Copenhagen University with some support from Aalborg University and in collaboration with the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin run one of these MPGs (see Greve, 2013 for details), Aarhus University and the University of Southern Denmark the other one. Although they differ in content, the basic structure and focus of the two MPGs are similar: it is a part-time program with 60 ECTS which can be studied in a quite flexible manner between two and six years. Most of the tuition fees are funded by central government. Apart from these Masters, two other executive programs are on offer: a Master of Public Management (MPM) of the University of Southern Denmark; and a MPA of the University of Aalborg. Both have similar patterns to the MPGs.

In the Netherlands there are several training institutions operated or sponsored by the government, e.g. the Netherlands School for Public Administration (NSOB) that offers a number of long-term programs for civil servants like a MPA and a program for city managers. NSOB is narrowly collaborating with several Dutch universities, e.g. with Rotterdam and Leiden. The MPA of NSOB is designed for government officials at upper-middle management level. Departments and agencies send their candidates to the program based on a competitive selection procedure (Pollitt and Op de Beeck, 2010). Furthermore, several universities and polytechnic institutions offer Master programs for professionals, few of them particularly for executive staff (e.g. the MPM program of Twente University). Such degree programs are attractive for civil servants wanting to climb-up their career ladder and expecting advantages from acquiring management and public policy competencies. Universities, however, do not distinguish explicitly between Masters for experienced professionals and such for younger graduates, as most Masters follow a one-year and 60 ECTS-format.

In the German speaking countries academic degree programs for a long time have played only a minor role in civil service training and development (Reichard, 2008). After extensive pre-service education the majority of civil servants received eventually some short-term refresher courses during their career offered by the various internal training schools and academies. Only for the promotion to a higher service class governments require a long-term promotional program (Schröter and Röber, 2015). More recently, Human Resources-departments – particularly in Switzerland – have become more open towards academic degree programs as measure for professional development. In all three German speaking countries, several polytechnic universities and a few universities are offering Master programs (mostly with 60 ECTS) for professionals, usually at midcareer level. Some examples:

Germany: a German language MPA at the University of Kassel with strong distance learning elements; an English language Executive MPA at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin; an English language MPM of the University of Potsdam with three variants; a German language Master of Administrative Sciences at the German University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer (Reichard and Röber, 2012, for more details).

As a general trend in this region we observe a slow decline of the relevance of internal government courses for midcareer staff and in contrast some increase of academic degree programs as prerequisite for further development and promotion.

Differences and commonalities

The different civil service systems in Europe still have impact on the supply structures and contents of professional education. This is particularly visible with regard to the institutional setting. In Central and Southern European countries there are either powerful government schools offering own long-term programs (e.g. France and Italy) or the civil service system does not set attractive incentives to its employees to acquire such additional degrees (e.g. Germany) which results in moderate training demands. After all, civil service systems in Europe are in a slow but steady change and show some converging tendencies. Examples are, for example, recruitment practices also at a midcareer stage which increase training needs for professionals (Demmke and Moilanen, 2010: 161).

Consequently, we observe a growing attractiveness of executive PA/PM degree programs offered by universities which results in an increase of supplying institutions at least in some countries (e.g. Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and the UK). The willingness to pay tuition fees is, however, a big issue. In some countries professionals are used to invest personally in their future career and thus are inclined to cover such costs themselves (e.g. the UK). In other countries – e.g. in the Nordic states – employers accept to carry at least parts of such fees. Again in other countries, governments only pay the costs of their own government schools (e.g. for in-house programs) but not the fees of equivalent university programs (e.g. Italy and Germany). In such an uncertain situation, the provision of executive programs is only of limited attractiveness for private universities with correspondingly higher tuition fees which forces them to focus more on professionals from abroad.

Executive programs in PA/PM are offered in varying formats: at first they address different target groups (young, midcareer and executive professionals from a single organisation, from national or from international provenance) and should be designed accordingly. Secondly, such programs can be operated in different modes (part-time or full-time, in different variants of blended learning) and with varying workload (e.g. Masters with 60–120 ECTS). Programs for senior civil servants are less frequently offered compared to midcareer programs. Senior executives are more time-constrained and their career development depends less on their further professional qualification but more on their connectedness with the political system and on appropriate soft skills. Executive programs in the national language are still dominant in most countries, although international MPAs in English language are slowly expanding.

With regard to the dominant program contents, the earlier mentioned three clusters of PA-education (Hajnal, 2003, 2015) are less visible in the European executive PA/PM-arena. The majority of executive Master programs in the reviewed countries put strong emphasis on (public) management issues, additionally on the development of generic and core competences. The importance of management themes is widely accepted in all countries, although the focus on generic “business school”-type concepts is more explicit in the Anglophone area (Pollitt and Op De Beeck, 2010: 122). Continental European executive programs tend to have a broader topical focus and cover also classical issues of Public Administration and Public Policy. Legal issues are less noticeable, probably because civil servants are already sufficiently knowledgeable in this field.

Executive degree programs nowadays mostly apply appropriate teaching methods with interactive approaches of learning being widely used. Case studies, simulation games, group projects, internships and other interactive formats are commonly used didactical tools at this level of education. Such programs have to adapt their teaching concepts to the specific interests and needs of experienced adults (Van der Meer and Ringeling, 2010; Van der Meer et al., in press). They already have considerable knowledge and skills, primarily with regard to bureaucratic practices, and they know much about the teaching subject public administration. They are able to share their knowledge and experience with others in the learning environment. They study in such programs to update, refresh, enrich and deepen their knowledge and skills. Therefore, they especially need support to link the learning contents with their existing practical experiences but also to better understand and explain problems in their practice.

Conclusions and lessons learned

Why does the landscape of executive PA/PM programs in Europe show such a diversified picture? One reason is certainly the historically rooted “national distinctiveness” of public administration traditions (Kickert, 2008) and particularly of the educational and recruitment systems of the various governments. There are a lot of routines and mindsets in the civil service practices of the various countries which are difficult to change. In some countries like in Germany, there are strong self-stabilising mechanisms in the recruitment system that are based on the still dominant role of lawyers and on the socialisation processes young servants are exposed to (Reichard, 2012). Consequently, several features of the educational concept of a government remain pretty stable and are resistant against reforms and international developments.

As civil service systems in Europe are slowly moving towards a position system, the entrance points into the system are now more diversified and governments look for more varying staff qualifications. Furthermore, the relevance of continuing training of civil servants in their midcareer stage is increasing, not least because of a shrinking half-life of knowledge.

The role of universities as provider of executive training is growing while the impact of internal government academies is slowly decreasing. University degrees as for instance a professional Master seem to become the dominant currency of continuing training, also because of growing job flexibility of employees in a much more diversified public sector.

There are some signs for a common format of executive degree programs in PA/PM: the workload is around 60 ECTS; and the length of study is two years in a part-time mode. The programs are in most cases highly modularised with some electives’ options. Elements of blended learning are slowly advancing. Programs for an internationally mixed audience (mostly in English) have become more visible although the majority of offered executive programs are still in the respective national language. In many cases, management issues are the dominant content area, often in a broader perspective (“public governance”).

It is so far uncertain if we will be able to develop a common format for professional Masters in Europe as it exists to some extent in the US with its widely acknowledged MPA. Or is the MBA the more promising common denominator for future executive PA/PM-programs? At least in the UK there is a clear trend to replace MPAs by MBAs, because the latter degree is perceived as being more attractive. There are, however, good arguments to argue against such a trend: a MBA has less public sector context and provides more prescriptive and toolbox-based knowledge (Murdock et al., 2014). It would be certainly desirable to move forward to a set of common core features in terms of contents, study length, entry requirements, etc. Although we already have some European-wide formal standards, we need to harmonise more essentials of degree programs for public sector professionals. The European Association of Public Administration Accreditation (EAPAA) has made some first steps in this direction by establishing a set of criteria for assessing the quality of academic programs in PA/PM (www.eapaa.org). But so far only a few executive programs have been accredited according to these standards.

Last but not least, executive programs should also be seen as a contribution to improve the attractiveness of the civil service. Together with motivating work environments and promising career perspectives, attractive educational programs for further development are major factors influencing the job selection decisions of young university graduates. In times of increasing demographic challenges due to the decreasing birth rates this may be an important argument.