The Challenge of Wicked Problems: Towards a Typology

The Challenge of Wicked Problems: Towards a Typology

Public lecture with John Alford

Kilen, room Ks.48, May 11th, 2015 from 16.00 to 18.00

In this talk, Professor John Alford will address the issue of “wicked problems” that are confronting public managers and politicians in Denmark and around the world. John Alford is known for his work on co-production, public value creation and management, and rethinking public service delivery systems.

This lecture is relevant if you are a public manager or a scholar in public management and governance.

John Alford is Professor of Public Sector Management at the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) and at the Melbourne Business School (MBS), University of Melbourne, from which he is on extended secondment.

John Alford’s research, published in a variety of international journals, focuses on strategic management in the public sector, contracting and partnering, tackling wicked problems, and client-organization relationships

His recent book won an award at the Academy of Management: Re-thinking Public Service Delivery (co-authored with Janine O’Flynn, Palgrave Macmillan 2012) won the Academy of Management (Public/Non-Profit Division) Best Book Award 2013.

His work on co-production is well-known globally and can be seen in his award-winning book: Engaging Public Sector Clients: From Service-Delivery to Co-production (Palgrave Macmillan 2009), won the American Society for Public Administration’s SPAR Award for the best public administration book of the year in 2011.

Prof. Alford leads the subject ‘Delivering Public Value’ in ANZSOG's Executive Master of Public Administration, as well as teaching in executive programs for public sector managers. He is an experienced case teacher, having taught with cases for over 20 years. He has also delivered workshops on case and interactive teaching at 23 universities in Australia and overseas. He has written or supervised over 100 teaching cases set in government organisations. He is responsible for the development of quality teaching at ANZSOG.

Program:

16.00-16.05: Welcome by Professor Carsten Greve, CBS Public-Private Platform
16.05-16.50: Presentation by Professor John Alford on “wicked problems”
16.50-17.10: Q&A moderated by Anne Reff Pedersen, Study Director of the Master of Public Governance Program and Associate Professor at CBS
17.10-18.00: Light reception and networking

Sign up for the lecture via our registration site.

The presentation is arranged by the CBS Public-Private Platform, the Department of Business and Politics and the Master of Public Governance program.