Lead­ing Com­plex Or­gan­iz­a­tions

Course content

This course prepares students for careers as effective managers by exploring the key practical and conceptual tasks and challenges facing complex organizations and the people who work in them. These challenges include organizing work as a series of diverse and challenging projects; managing project portfolios; negotiating work tasks with experts, professionals, and knowledge workers; maintaining integration in very diverse workplaces; and grappling with uncertainty and change. The course stresses that in such contexts, the strategic, organisational and cultural aspects of management practice always intersect and overlap. At the same time, the course explores several theories that link these dynamics tightly together.
 
The course further pursues the notion that management practices rooted in industrial regimes of production increasingly have been superseded in many instances by new management practices that foreground collaboration, leadership, culture and the regulation of identity. The course therefore includes discussion of those aspects of organisational life that are often marginalised in standard texts, including the politics and complexities of managerial decision-making, the personal stresses associated with managerial work, the roles played by ordinary human interaction, relationships, and humour in organizational settings.