LDR 670
Organizational Theory, Design and Change
Semester Units
Prerequisite
3
BUS 602
Course Description
This course explores how organizations understand and integrate with their environments. Theories are valuable and important because they help us explain and control our surroundings. Thus, organizational theory is important and valuable because it can explain how organizations view themselves and help us bring control to how they interact with their environment. When we design organizations, theory can bring a logical foundation to our design efforts. It can help us put in place mechanisms to control those organizations to meet their goals. Finally, this course will examine the constant need to understand and approach vital changes that must be made if organizations are to remain dynamic and vital. Change in organizations is the way they respond to, and shape, their environment. How will organizations take control of how and when they change? Students will be able to identify relevant organizational theories that will allow them to design effective organizations, and construct change strategies that can keep organizations viable in changing environments.
Course Learning Outcomes
Describe the relationship between organizational theory and organizational design and change.
Differentiate between organizational structure and culture.
Identify various stakeholder groups and their interests or claims on an organization.
List the forces in an organization’s specific and general environment that give rise to opportunities and threats.
Describe the four basic organizational design challenges confronting managers and consultants.
Explain why a hierarchy of authority emerges in an organization and the process of vertical differentiation.
Explain why most organizations initially have a functional structure and why, over time, problems arise with this structure that requires change to a more complex structure.
Differentiate between values and norms.
Describe the way culture is shared by an organization’s members, and why organizations have different types of culture.
Identify the ways managers can use functional-level strategy to develop core competencies that allow an organization to create value and give it a competitive advantage.
Identify what technology is and how it relates to organizational effectiveness.
Analyze the relationship among organizational change, redesign, and organizational effectiveness.
Describe the typical problems that arise as an organization grows and matures, and how an organization must change if it is to survive and prosper.
Differentiate among several models of decision-making that describe how managers make decisions.
Describe how innovation and technological change affect each other.
Explain how and why individuals and subunits engage in organizational politics to enhance their control over decision-making and obtain the power that allows them to influence the change process in their favor.
Explain the importance of managing an organizations’ power structure to overcome organizational inertia and to bring about the type of change that promotes performance.