The course will consist of 12 weeks of teaching, made up of lectures, exercises and group activities. In the exercise session students may draw on examples and experiences from other courses or their own work experience, just as we will discuss case material that illustrates the various lapproaches. Additionally, students will be assigned to write a smaller mandatory presentation in the middle of the course.

SYLLABUS


1) Introduction to the course

January 29th, 2013

Introduction to Morgans methaphors and how they can be used to look at organizations.
Perspective from Unboss on how organizations are changing.

Morgan, Gareth (1997) Images of Organization (London: Sage): 3-8 (5 p.)

2) Organizations as machines and organisms

February 5th, 2013

How can organizations be looked at as machines and organisms. Introduction to Morgans metaphors and discussion of which role IT plays for a mechanistic and organism perspectives.

Morgan, Gareth (1997) ‘Mechanization Takes Command’, chap. 2 in Images of
Organization (London: Sage): 11-31 (21 p).
Morgan, Gareth (1997) ‘Nature Intervenes: Organizations as Organisms, chap. 3 in
Images of Organization (London: Sage): 33-71 (28 p).
Taylor, Frederick Winslow (1911) Principles of Scientific Management (New
York and London: Harper & brothers): 1-11 (11 p).


3) Organizations as cultures

February 12th, 2013

How can organizations be looked at as culture? What constitutes culture, how does it emerge and in which ways can it be manipulated?

Morgan, Gareth (1997) ’Creating Social Reality’, chap 5 in Images of Organization (London: Sage): 119-152 (33 p)
Nonaka. I (1991) ‘The Knowledge Creating Company’ Harvard Business Review 69 (6): 96-106. (11 p)


4) Organizations as Brains - Self-organizing processes & learning.

February 19th, 2013
How can organizations be looked at as self-organizing processes and flux. What is the relationship between, chaos, order and complexity and how are networks and learning related to organizations.

Morgan, Gareth (1997) ‘Learning and Self-organization’, chap 4 in Images of Organization (London: Sage): 73-118 (45 p)
Stacey - TBD
Maturana & Varela - TBD

OBS: 11-15

5) Organizations as political entities or power as organizing force

February 26th, 2013

How can organizations be looked at as power, force and domination? Which role does IT and surveillance play in organization?

Morgan, Gareth (1997) ‘Interest, Conflicts, and Power”, chap. 6 in Images of Organization (London: Sage): 153-213. (59 p)
Latour, B. (1986) ‘The Powers of Association’ in J. Law. (ed.) Power, Action and Belief (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul): 264-80. (16 p)


6) Organisations as as flux and transformation

March 5th, 2013

How can organizations be looket at as flux and transformation? How can humans act if everything is constantly changing, how can change and transformation be managed and which role does IT play in facilitating change.

Morgan, Unfolding Logics of Change, chap. 8 in Images of Organization (London: Sage): 251-301 (49 p)
Doolin, Bill (2003) 'Narratives of Change: Discourse, Technology and Organisation', Organization 10(4): 751-70. (19 p)
Weick - TBD


7) Workshop: Crowdsourcing
8) Workshop: Crowdsourcing

March 12th or march 19th, 2013

How can new approaches to organization and organizing work be understood and facilitated. We will look at the field of Crowdsourcing and work with topics like: open innovation, open source culture, user-driven innovation, distributed innovation, crowd sourcing.

- Brabham, Daren, C. (2008): “Crowdsourcing as a Model for Problem Solving” in Convergence vol. 14 no. 1 pp. 75-90. (15 pages in compendium)
- Tapscott, Don (2006): Wicinomics. New York, Penguine Group. “Ideagoras” pp. 97-123
- Unboss - TBD

OBS: 9-17.


2) The social construction of reality as a perspective on change and innovation.

April 2nd, 2013

How can organizations be understood as social construction and which role does language play? In this session we will investigate the creation of social realities. We will use this to talk about how the use of social media and collaborative software is shaping or creating our realities and social worlds?


Kenneth Gergen, an invitation to social constructionism. Barnett Pearce, Communication, Action and Meaning: The creation of social realities (http://pearceassociates.com/essays/documents/Communication_Action_Meaning_-_Pearce__Cronen__Searchable__Cropped_.pdf (Link)
Morgan, Gareth (1997): Imaginization: New Mindsets for Seeing, Organizing and Managing, Sage Publications.


3) Participatory and generative process management

April 9th, 2013

How can we look at organizations like processes and what are the ways to engage in and facilitate participatory and generative process management. We’ll talk about how participatory IT is helping organizations achieve their purpose.

David L. Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva ”Appreciative Inquiry in organizational life” (Link)
Gervase R. Bushe, ”Advances in Appreciative Inquiry as an Organization Development Intervention” http://www.gervasebushe.ca/aiodj.htm (Link)
Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski and Flowers (2005): Presence: Exploring profound change in people, organizations, and society. NY: Doubleday.


4) Design Thinking and proactive planning

April 16th, 2013
Design thinking and proactive planning is another way to look at and work with organizations, IT and change. We will look into the approach and study a couple of examples that will lay out a strong process perspective with users and needs in focus.

Boland and Collopy (2004): Design Matters for Management, in Boland Jr., Richard JR., Collopy, Fred (Eds.) Managing as Designing (Book), CA: Stanford University Press.
Buchanan, Richard (1992): Wicked Problems in Design Thinking, Design Issues, 8(2) pp. 5-21.

12) Summary - Questions for exam

April 23rd, 2013

(Changes and additional texts may occur) 

The final grade is based on a written report, which must be 10 standard-pages per student. The report can be written collectively, but assessment is individual. Grading is based on external examination. Examination form C1