208-331 Community Change Management

This subject introduces the current approaches to initiating and effectively managing community change towards economic development, human capacity building, development of social capital and environmental sustainability in regional communities. It will take a case study approach to explore recent examples of community change in regional Australia leading to the identification of key ingredients to successful regional community change. Students will work in groups to conduct studies of recent community change in Northern Victoria and develop analysis of the most effective and important components in successfully managing community change and the relatives roles of leadership and government in this process.

Topics include: current processes of change management; techniques to build human capacity; social capital - definition and development; environmental sustainability; recent successful and unsuccessful attempt to achieve regional change; public interest and goal setting; strategic planning for community change; decision making, monitoring and evaluation to achieve regional development; concepts of development management.

A 3-hour end-of-semester examination (50%) a group project and report (25%), and two 1000-word assignments (each worth 12.5%).