The Public and Political Management Group is situated in the disciplinary intersection of business administration, sociology, organisation theory, political science, management and communication. Its unique profile constitutes a real innovation in Danish research. The research strategy aims to make CBS a leader in the Nordic countries in the study of “organisation in society” and political communication.

The group’s research is characterised first and foremost by a particular analytic gaze according to which the political is to be understood as the constitutive element of any sociality. The research strategy, then, does not indicate any specific object to the exclusion of others; rather, it indicates a particular way of studying themes that are relevant for CBS such as public and private organisations, management, governance, economy, and personnel. The group works especially with the boundary between public and private, and with political communication and management.

The group provides teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels, including the PhD, Master of Public Administration (MPA), BSc in Communication, and MSc in Business Administration and Philosophy programmes.

Research Areas

Political corporations
How private corporations are woven into politically oriented networks and are then expected to act responsibly in relation to society.

Political construction of markets
How the public sector contributes to the creation of new markets dominated by non-market rationalities through outsourcing and partnerships.

Welfare management
How classical welfare institutions such as the public school, the church, nursery homes and social institutions are made into independent organizations with responsibility for management.
How a series of welfare tasks are sought managed through modern management technologies and which consequences this has for tasks character and quality.

Management og voluntary organizations
How the public sector more rapidly makes partnerships and contracts with volunteer organizations in order to solve welfare tasks. How this challenges the volunteer organizations in relation to management and their volunteer status.

Political management technologies and forms of practice
How new forms of management and steering technologies are being developed and how these affect how management is conceptualized and how they produce visibility and invisibility in the communication of organizations.

Campaign management
How the public sector steers and manages through discursive opinion-animating campaigns.
How is communication a media for steering? What is the limit for communication management? How are campaigns strategically structured?

Human development and management
How are citizens and employees expected to be self-managing? For instance when citizen are expected to be their own health ministers. Employees have to be responsible for their own re-employability. How does freedom become in some sense a duty? How are self-management managed? What kind of power-relations are entangled in self-management?

Public management
How does the public sector mutate into something best conceptualized as the management state? What conditions are set for public management, as public institutions are expected to undertake more and more functions? How does the relationship politics/administration change?

School and education management
How is the management structure and the culture of the public school developed after the recent years´ reforms and discussion about welfare and quality-development in relation to school management.
How is the school developed through the interaction between school and administration?
How is professional knowledge of the public school observed in the interaction between school, pupils and parents?
Where are the crucial points of intersection and in which fields are the battles fought between team management and the school manager?

International publications with a system theoretical perspective: International publications from a systems-theoretical perspective

Current Projects

The group heads a knowledge club in the management of volunteer organisations, and has taken a leading role in setting up the Nordic Network for Systems Theory.

Members: Anders la Cour, Betina W. Rennison, Camilla Sløk, Christian Borch, Christian Wymann, Dorthe Pedersen, Erik Højbjerg, Helene Ratner, Holger Højlund, Lotte Jensen, Justine Grønbæk Pors, Kaspar Villadsen, Kathrine Hoffmann Pii, Niels Thygesen, Sabrina Speiermann, Susanne Ekman.

Research Director: Niels Aakerstroem Andersen