Course content
Organizations are everywhere in different forms, size, internal structure, tasks, and goals. This course will expose students to important theories and conceptual models for analyzing and understanding organizations with the aim of designing effective structures and cultures that allow them to create value, survive, develop and thrive. The course will articulate that employees do not always act in a rational and consistent manner. Our ability - whether as a new employee, a middle manager, or a top level executive - to understand, explain, and predict human behavior in organizations is a valuable skill. We will study a wide range of organizational situations and examples, and connect them to organizational theories and effective management methods. We will bridge theory and practice through organizational analysis by exploring a series of successful and unsuccessful examples. Students will learn to apply different theoretical perspectives in our attempt to provide situational analysis and plausible solutions. No single model of an effective organization will be advocated - no "right answer" that can be applied universally; rather, we will explore the factors and conditions within and outside an organization that can be controlled to provide the best fit with the dynamic environment and thereby create the greatest opportunity for success. The imperative for organizational learning, continuous adaptation, and change based on new developments will be emphasized.
Class 1: Organizational theories, Organizational behavior
Class 2: Managing individual and cultural diversity in organizations
Class 3: Workplace attitudes, Job satisfaction
Class 4: Work motivation
Class 5: Group processes: Conflict management
Class 6: Organizational processes: Leading with and without authority
Class 7: Decision making; Organized anarchy
Feedback activity: Organizational analysis
Class 8: Organizational Culture, Structure and Design; Knowledge management, Learning organization
Class 9: The organization and its environment: Resource dependency, Organizational ecologies
Class 10: Organizational analysis presentation (live or online upload, depending on class size)
Class 11: Comprehensive summary, exam preparation
See course description in course catalogue