Public management training economic analysis: a real options approach

Abstract

This article explores the application of cost-benefit analysis extended to real options (ECBA) to the area of management training and more specifically of public management training. Although methodological, the presentation is in non-mathematical form and in a language generally accessible to managers and administrators. After an introductory section on the main features of ECBA, it deals with its relevance to management training as well as with the most relevant ‘call’ and ‘put’ options normally faced in the design of public management training. It reviews the potential of ECBA in a selected number of recent training analyses and charts a research agenda which could parallel or complement that being implemented by various agencies, e.g. by the Italian Advanced School of Public Administration (Scuola Superiore della Pubblica Amministrazione, SSPA), a number of Dutch universities, the World Bank—in infrastructure and other sectors.