LFU:online

The course is designed to introduce students to fundamental questions and approaches to the study of organizations and their design. The main goal of this course is to familiarize students with the major theoretical and empirical traditions in organization theory and to understand their significance and relevance for contemporary organizations and forms of organizing.

Students will acquire basic knowledge on structural and processual aspects of organizational design.

They will get to know the means by which organizations are designed, managed and controlled.

Each lecture will introduce and discuss different theoretical perspectives of organizational design. A specific focus is on organizational structures and processes in complex and dynamic organizational environments. We will also discuss the social and empirical contexts in which major organizational shifts and theoretical developments occurred.

Specifically, the following topics and theories of organizational design will be covered:

·         Organizational structures and strategy

·         Organizations in open environments

·         Theoretical approaches: From contingency theory to dynamic capabilities

·         Organizations, interorganizational collaborations, and networks

·         Population ecology

·         Institutional logics and institutional complexity

·         Social movement organizations

Input by the lecturer, plenary and group discussions, group work, case studies

written exam

key academic readings; accessible via OLAT

Successful completion of the mandatory courses  Approaches to Organization Studies (APPROS) referred to in § 7 Z 1

some components thought digitally

Registration is always done for interactive courses such as SE, UE, PS or AG.

If the student's status changes from "Registration requested" to "Registration confirmed" after the registration deadline for the MA programme, he/she is automatically registered for the VO (or VU) belonging to the module.