Public management as a Social Science or a Business Subject in a University of Technology: inaugural address

Abstract

A lasting debate still prevails regarding the focus and locus of public management as an academic discipline and whether it should be registered and presented as an academic qualification within the standard qualification programme and qualification mix (PQM) of a University of Technology. The question has become increasingly more contemporary with the directive that as from January 2009 all new qualification programmes will have to meet the requirements of the new Higher Education Qualification Framework (HEQF) as published in October 2007. The purpose of this address is not to deepen or add to the debate but to attempt to clarify and contextualize the development of the discipline and sketch its present status from a global and local perspective especially with regard to the development of the discipline in Universities of Technology. A further attempt will be made to correlate the performance of government with the teaching of public management to assess the effectiveness of public management teaching and research and thereby question the content and need for the qualification. Finally, my address will examine the role and contribution of the Department of Public Management to this university of technology and propose a new approach.