Management of Public Services

The aim of the study program can be summarized as “second career”. It is intended for professionals in the field of services (cultural, physical education, later also social) or sport who see their professional future in the transition from executive to a managerial position. The content and form of study take into account that students have already gained practical experience in their field, and they are mostly graduates of philosophical, sports or social science faculties. The program complements their profile with the economic and managerial competencies necessary for the management of public institutions, non-profit organizations and small businesses. Multidisciplinarity, obtained by the involvement of participating entities, which are the sister faculties of MU, brings the program a unique quality compared to competing programs. The courses they provide aim to deepen and update students' current knowledge and inspire them to seek and initiate innovative scenarios for the development of institutions they manage. One of the goals of the program is to enable students to apply their practical experience. Emphasis is placed on directly applicable knowledge and skills. As with all such professionally oriented programs, the forms of teaching are chosen to maximize student enrichment by confronting the experience of not only teachers and practitioners but also other students.

After successfully completing his/her studies the graduate is able to:

• understand the legal norms relevant to his professional interest, basic legal institutes of private law, including liability and selected contractual relationships;
• clarify and apply the basic principles of strategic management and to apply creatively the knowledge of the current development of their field of study to the development strategy of a particular institution depending on its specific conditions;
• understand the main principles of the policymaking process, policy development, planning, implementation, and evaluating the outcomes of public service delivery.
• clarify and apply the basic principles of quality management and organisational change; orientate in the aim-setting and method of its tools;
• teamwork, discuss, defend their proposals against the wider plenary;
• understand the importance and main principles of accounting as a tool for identifying and assessing the financial health of an institution;
• understand the institution's budgeting process and be able to assess the impact of various alternatives of the allocation of funds within an institution on its expected behaviour;
• acquire the principles of financial control and management with due care;
• understand the specificities of human resource management in service industries;
• clarify and apply the basic principles of project management, including methods of project selection and evaluation of their economic efficiency.
• conduct a decent and thorough case-study - including information gathering (interviewing, document analysis, systematic observation), stakeholder analysis, and political and social contextualization.

Graduates are trained primarily for managerial and administrative/business positions in specific conditions of public services and non-profit organizations. Their education also enables them to earn their living as self-employed. They can be employed, for example, as directors of contributory organizations, project managers, directors of non-profit organizations, sales or marketing staff, sports club officials or independent consultants, advisors, etc.

The study plan of the proposed program corresponds to the requirements defined in the Government Regulation on Standards for Accreditation in Higher Education. Students will be required to complete 12 weeks of practical training. Students' practice will be provided in the form of a special subject Working Experience, which will be a mandatory part of the study plan. Content and place of practice are proposed by the student and approved by the course guarantor. The content of the practice must correspond to the content of the study. The prerequisite is that the course guarantor will also agree on new positions that will be offered to students. The starting point is that candidates are already on the labour market and can practice with current employers (subject to the condition of content similarity to the program studied).

Elaboration of the final work of about 30-35 pages (without attachments) should verify the ability of students to apply problem-oriented approach to interest entities (businesses, public and state institutions, non-profit organizations, cities and regions, information systems, etc.), search for necessary set of relevant information, identify and accurately describe problem fields in accordance with acquired theoretical knowledge, determine appropriate methods and procedures for their applied analysis, describe and analyze obtained data and propose specific and typically feasible measures to resolve problem or optimized situations. The focus of the final work and its practical outcomes will be closely linked to the compulsory course of Practice, both content and form will be decided on in cooperation with the supervisor.

The study program does not provide for the specifically created possibility to continue in further studies. Potential applicants for Master's follow-up programs may study in the follow-up Master's program Public Economics and Administration at ESF MU or similar study programs in the field of public economics after passing standard entrance procedure.