What is development management?

Abstract

What is distinctive about development management? This paper first discusses different views of development and management separately, and goes on to characterize development management both as management in the context of development as a long-term historical process and as the management of deliberate efforts at progress by means of intervention in the social change process on the part of a variety of agencies. Thus development management should be thought of in terms of process and is distinctive in aiming at social goals external to any particular organization in the context of value-based conflicts. The paper concludes with a list of conceptual and skill areas which this view implies are important to development management as a new academic and professional field.

Development management as reflective practice

“…In keeping with contention (a) above, Thomas (1996) suggests that development management is distinctive in the sense that it is 'counter to the idea that management principles are universal', and because it involves intervention that is essentially about deliberate effort towards progress and social change. It is thus different from conventional management in that it extends beyond internal, organisational goals towards meeting external social goals (such as sustainable development).…”

“…Rather, he implies that it takes place at a range of scales, from the very local to the international. What is distinctive for him (Thomas, 1996(Thomas, , 1999(Thomas, , 2001) is the interorganisational at whatever scale, because of the multitude of agencies doing development, none of whom have monolithic power to wholly set agendas or determine outcomes. He (Thomas, 2001) recognises that uniformity and control are often exercised on poor countries by multilateral agencies, but he also points to the possibility of value-based agency to change things, including, for example agency that employs radical conceptions of participation.…”

“…It takes as its starting point the agency-centred definition of Thomas (1996) where development management is a multi-actor field of practice associated with deliberate action for development, while also drawing on approaches such as those of Brinkerhoff and Coston (1999), Cooke (2001Cooke ( , 2003Cooke ( , 2004 and Edwards and Fowler (2002). The paper analyses development manager reflections as espoused in University Masters' projects in the subject area.…”

Putting livelihoods thinking into practice: implications for development management

“…The concept of 'livelihoods' attempts to capture the complexity of ways of living as opposed to the narrower concept of 'employment' (Arce 2003), whereas specific SL principles evolved from debates over the need to create people-centred and learning processes in development. Conventional 'blue-print' approaches to management have been recognised for over twenty years as being ineffective in achieving socio-economic development goals (Bond and Hulme 1999;Rondinelli 1993;Thomas 1996). In response process approaches were seen as being a possible solution to the rigidity of the conventional approach.…”

Professional capacity and organizational change as measures of educational effectiveness: assessing the impact of postgraduate education in Development Policy and Management

“…Development can be seen as an historical process of change, as a vision or desirable state of society, or as purposive behaviour to achieve what are seen as developmental goals; development management has corresponding connotations (Thomas, 1996(Thomas, , 1999. The third view (purposive behaviour to achieve developmental goals) is the one that directly concerns us, even though it can be overly instrumental.…”