88-752 Organizational Theory

Units: 12.0 Department: Social & Decision Sci. Cross-listed: 17-756 , 39-752 , 90-926 Related URLs: http://hss.cmu.edu/HTML/departments/sds/ Individuals and technology shape and are shaped by organizations. What are the basic processes? What is the role of coordination, communication, power, social networks, tasks, goals in affecting group and organizational behavior? What are the basic methodological and theoretical concerns? What will the organizations of the next century look like? These and related concerns will be examined in this course. This course provides an overview of the dominant perspectives on organizational theory from a macro perspective. Both classic historical treatments of organizations and modern approaches and concerns in the area are covered. Theoretical perspectives covered include: structuralism, information processing, resource dependency, population ecology, networks, open and closed systems, and institutionalism. In addition, a variety of substantive and methodological topic areas that are having a major impact on the field are addressed: Organizational Learning, Organizations and Technology, Communication in Organizations, Computational Organization Theory, Organizational Evolution & Change, and Social and Organizational Networks. Priority access to this course will be given to Ph.D. students, masters students, and undergraduate seniors. Grading may be based mainly on a term paper, attendance, and paper synopses. No prior knowledge of organizational theory is required.

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Spring 2005 times

No sections available for semester Spring 2005.