公共政策及管理硕士

This course will review the literature, tools, and strategies that inform quantitative and qualitative methods of research in public policy. The focus of the course will be on generating and using evidence in public policy.

Lectures will cover the following topics:

1. Understanding policy research
   • Four levels of policy research
   • Basic component of a study: research question, research hypothesis, independent variable, dependent variable, population, sample, and sampling methods
   • Characteristics of a good sample: Representativeness, sufficient sample size, and acceptable response rate
2. Population, sample, and sampling error
   • Population, sample, parameter, and statistics
   • Sampling error and its measurement
   • Relationship between sample size and sampling error
   • Relationship of sampling error with population size, estimated parameter and confidence level
   • Justification of sample size in proposal
3. Sampling method
   • Random sampling vs non-random sampling
   • Simple random sampling, systematic random sampling, multi-stage cluster random sampling, stratified random sampling
   • Convenience sampling, snowball sampling and quota sampling
4. Questionnaire design and method data collection
   • Design a good questionnaire
   • Face-to-Face interview, phone interview, and self-administration questionnaire or mail survey
5. Quantitative data analysis with SPSS
   • Introduction to SPSS
   • Descriptive statistics: Frequency distribution, mean, mode, median, range, standard deviation, and standard error
   • Level of measurement:
   • Bivariate data analysis: Chi-square test, t-test, and correlation
   • Multivariate data analysis: Regression
6. Qualitative method
   • In-depth interview, focus group and observation
   • Sampling
   • Design (single case of multiple cases)
   • Qualitative data analysis: Coding, interpreting, analysing, triangulation, verification, rigour, theory building and use of NVIVO
7. Policy evaluation design
   • Introduction to policy evaluation design
   • Single group post-test design
   • Single group pre- and post-test design
   • Internal validity of the design
   • Experimental and control group pre- and post-test design
   • Randomized clinical trial
8. Data analysis in policy evaluation
   • Data analysis for single group post-test design
   • Data analysis for single group pre- and post-test design
   • Data analysis for randomized clinical trial: Attrition analysis, evaluation of randomized group assignment, main analysis
9. Proposal and report writing
   • Introduction: Literature review, strategies for justifying the study, objectives and hypothesis
   • Method: Design, sampling and sample size, data collection, questionnaire, and statistical analysis
   • Ethnical approval and budget in proposal
   • Result and discussical in report

This course will last for the whole academic year. The course will start with 13 lectures in the first semester. The students with similar research interests will also form into groups of four to five by the end of the first semester. Under the same broad topic, each student in the group will identify a different research question in the second semester. A faculty member will be assigned to guide their projects. Students will have an oral presentation on the proposal and their findings of the broad topic as a group in Week 13 of the second semester. At the end, students will submit the individual report. Similarity on the write-up among students should be minimal since each student has a different research question.

The research group project is intended to provide students the opportunities to integrate analytical skills and specialized knowledge gained in the MPPM programme and to apply them to analysing and addressing real-world policy problems. Conducting the project will consist of describing the scope and magnitude of the chosen problem, analysing its causes, proposing solutions, and assessing the implications of the proposed solutions. The topics students choose are expected to be in an area with which students have some practical or academic familiarity.

Course Outline

This course serves as a foundation course to equip students with key theoretic and analytical abilities essential for understanding the complex world of public policy and governance. Public policy and governance studies are multidisciplinary in nature. This course will draw from major theories and techniques in political science, public administration, sociology, and economics and synthesize into a coherent set of knowledge that students without undergraduate background in related fields can comprehend. Related to this, a salient feature of this course is the extensive use of cases, particularly from Asia. The first half of this course is a systematic survey on concepts, theories and analytic techniques in public policy and governance. In the second half of the course, the focus will be pinned on Asia, especially the Greater China region where most students live and work. This part of the course will lead students to understand and analyze policy and governance issues in the region with theories and methods that will have learned in the first half of the course. Students will experience a variety of pedagogies in this course, including lecture, seminar, movie-screening and discussion, and field visit.

Course Outline

The course introduces the concepts and principles that underpin strategic communication in organizations by focusing in three main areas – understanding human communication, understanding contemporary communication environments and new media, and critical analysis of the applicability and concept of strategic communication.

Course Outline

This course aims to ensure that students are familiar with the nature of organisations, their structures, processes and working environments, and particularly the specific characteristics of public and private organisations particularly in the Asian context. It enables students to understand some of the key concepts and theories in organisational behavior; and analyze the implications of organisational behavior for public and private sector management. This course lays the foundation for the understanding of human behaviour in organisations, providing students with a comprehensive exposure to organisational behaviour theories, research and workplace issues illustrated with case studies and examples primarily within an Asian context.

Course Outline

This course investigates the fiscal role of government in the modern context. It engages students in the analysis and critique of the fundamental issues of public finance and budgeting. Drawing on the cases of Mainland China, Hong Kong, other countries such as the USA, the course covers the topics ranging from fundamental principles of public finance, the role of  government, budget process and procedures, revenue generation, intergovernmental fiscal relations to education finance and income distribution. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to compare and critically understand public finance and budgeting in various contexts.

Course Outline

This course examines public administration and management in selected Asian countries, utilizing case discussions and critical readings. Students will be exposed to three thematic areas: (1) understanding the nature of change in public administration and management in Asia; (2) analysing opportunities for, and constraints on, the use of reforms that dominate contemporary debates in the public sector; and (3) assessing the outcomes, policy benefits and costs associated with the changing nature of public administration and management among various sectors across Asia.

Course Outline

This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of project appraisal and impact analysis. The core areas include project planning, cost-benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, multi-criteria analysis, experiments and quasi-experiments, regression framework, impact assessment approaches such as EIA and SIA, etc. Examples of applications, especially in the Asian context, will be drawn during the lectures. This course will enable students to understand the social, economic and environmental issues related to resource allocation of public programmes and projects. They will learn tools to help assessing and improving public-sector projects in terms of their purposes, design, implementation and efficiency.

Course Outline

This course aims to critically engage students with contemporary issues and developments in human resource management (HRM). Adopting a diverse multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural and comparative approach the course will require students to discover, analyse and contribute to providing creative solutions for specific HRM issues and enable applicants to examine the key concepts, core issues, principles and processes in HRM; discover the principles and theories of HRM particularly in the public sector; apply the concepts and theories to analyze HRM issues and the challenges facing the public sector today. The course expects to discuss the HRM practices in a number of Asian countries to demonstrate an understanding on how the public sector reforms have impacted the principles and processes of HR issues.

Course Outline

This course aims to recognize significant recent trends and developments in theories and practices in international public management. It further examines the processes and the impact of globalization, internationalization, diffusion and transfers on public sector management and public sector reform. It enables applicants to analyse key aspects of public management through comparisons of key management reforms within the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

Course Outline

This course aims to enable students to understand regulation and regulatory governance used in various parts of the world, with an emphasis on real-world examples from Asia and China.
Part A of the course introduces students to the fundamental and practical aspects of regulation: development, enforcement, monitoring, and revision. It uses real-world examples to illustrate the following multi-step approach:
• Identify the need for regulation (e.g., the electricity sector as a natural monopoly).
• Set the public policy goals (e.g., safe, reliable, clean and affordable service).
• Design regulation to achieve those goals, given the behaviour of the directly regulated entity and other stakeholders (e.g., electricity consumers and producers, manufacturers of energy-efficient appliances, and real estate developers of green buildings).
• Monitor regulatory performance (e.g., has the regulation resulted in safe, reliable service at an affordable cost? and has it reduced electricity generation’s emissions?).
• Revise the regulation to improve its performance (e.g., should there be tighter emissions control on electricity production?).
To ensure students’ firm understanding, Part A requires students to form teams, each performing a case study of a sector/industry in Asia that impacts one’s daily life (e.g., airline, auto manufacturing, banking, construction, drug manufacturing, education, energy, finance, food supply, health care, gaming/gambling, internet commerce, news media, non-government organizations, public housing, shipping, taxi, telecommunication, television broadcasting, and trucking). Each team may have up to three members, although a student may choose to work as a one-person team.
Part B focuses on regulatory governance. Regulation can fail sans good regulatory governance that encompasses the systems, processes, and tools designed and implemented to ensure regulatory quality. To see this point, consider the case of food safety (e.g., baby milk formula). A safe and reliable supply of baby milk formula cannot occur without addressing such issues in regulatory governance as:
• Clarity of the regulatory mandate (e.g., safe and adequate supply);
• Key driver for a regulator agency’s establishment (e.g., public interest vs. industry profit);
• Choice of a regulatory agency’s leader (e.g., an independent health expert vs. a researcher from the industry);
• Accountability and transparency (e.g., limited vs. strong oversight by an independent third party);
• Incentive for compliance (e.g., bad publicity, loss of business licences, fine, and imprisonment);
• Independence and competence (e.g., biased and inapt vs. fair and competent);
• Scope and responsibility (e.g., narrow vs. broad); and
• Funding and authority (e.g., poorly funded and weak vs. adequately funded and strong).
To ensure students’ firm understanding, Part B requires each team to perform a follow-up study of regulatory governance for the case chosen in Part A. This study should focus on the systems, processes, and tools for effecting regulatory quality, rather than Part A’s study on the development, design and revision of a particular regulation.

Course Outline

This course aims to enable students to understand environmental policies and their governance in various parts of the world, with an emphasis on real-world examples from Asia and China.
Part A of the course introduces students to the fundamental and practical aspects of an environmental policy: development, assessment and revision. It uses real-world examples to illustrate the following multi-step approach:
• Identify the need for the policy (e.g., global warming due to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions );
• Set the policy target (e.g., 50% below the 2000 level by year 2030);
• Identify the possible policy actions to achieve the target (e.g., promote energy-efficient appliances and buildings, increase fuel-efficient/electric cars, retire coal-fired power plants, and develop renewable, nuclear energy, and clean vehicular fuels).
• Formulate a policy plan that may include regulations (e.g., no old dirty cars on the road by 2020), tax and subsidy (e.g., exemption of registration fee for electric cars), and quota-based programs (e.g., renewable portfolio standards (RPS) to develop wind generation for electric car charging).
• Assess the plan’s merit from various perspectives (e.g., costs and values, political and public acceptance, science and technology, administration and management).
• Revise the policy and its plan after their implementation to address such questions as: (a) should the policy target be tightened? and (b) should its plan be changed?
To ensure students’ firm understanding, Part A requires students to form teams, each performing a case study of an environment policy in Asia that impacts one’s daily life (e.g., air quality, electricity generation, energy consumption, environmental education, food production, land use, mining and resource extraction, marine resources, public transportation, toxic waste, and water quality). Each team may have up to three members, although a student may choose to work as a one-person team.
An environment policy can fail sans good governance. Hence, Part B focuses on environmental governance that entails interventions to change environment-related incentives, institutions, decision making, and behaviour. It includes regulatory processes, mechanisms and organizations through which political actors influence environmental actions and outcomes. To see this point, consider the case of large GHG reductions that cannot occur without addressing such questions in environmental governance as:
• Who are the major consumers of fossil fuels that contribute to GHG emissions and global warming (e.g., cars, electricity generators, and manufacturing plants)?
• What are the other sources of GHG emissions (e.g., coal and wood as cooking/heating fuel, deforestation, farming, land fill, and fossil fuel extraction)?
• Do these consumers believe that global warming is a real risk, rather than a scientific hoax?
• Do they act on their own, without intervention of any kind, to reduce GHG emissions?
• How do they respond to regulatory processes (e.g., GHG emissions standards), incentive mechanisms (e.g., carbon taxes) and organizations (e.g., government agencies and self-regulatory bodies)?
• What are the characteristics of the global warming problem that transcends national borders (e.g., developed vs. developing countries), space (e.g., Asia vs. North America), and time (current vs. future generation)?
• What are the actions that the government, communities, businesses, and NGOs may take to achieve GHG reductions?
• What is the role of decentralization that delegates the responsibility of GHG reductions to local administrative and organizational arrangements, as well as individual decision-making by market participants (e.g., RPS set by individual states in the U.S.)?
• What are the market-based mechanisms that use incentives (e.g., carbon taxes and cap and trade) to induce GHG reductions?
• What are the inter-relationships among international accords, national policies, local decision-making structures, transnational institutions, and environmental groups?
• What is the impact of globalization that interconnects various regions on GHG reductions?
To ensure students’ firm understanding, Part B requires each team to perform a follow-up study of environmental governance for the case chosen in Part A. This study should focus on the systems, processes, and tools to effectively execute an environmental policy, rather than Part A’s study on the development, design and revision of the policy.

Course Outline

The Internship / Overseas Experiential Learning course prepares our future public manger or administrators to gain and apply their knowledge in realistic situations through an industry placement for eight weeks or an overseas experiential learning via lectures and site visits for one week. The involvement in Internship / Overseas Experiential Leaning will facilitate students to network in professional fields they are considering for career paths and grant them an opportunity for professional advancement. It will enable students advance team working roles and skills and boost group bonding through engagement in a variety of collaborative and competitive extended team-based exercise. It is anticipated that the skills attained from working with an organization or overseas lectures and site visits will benefit students in facilitating them to enhance their performance on their jobs after graduation. Students taking this course can either choose the Internship stream or Overseas Experiential Learning Stream.

Course Outline