Organization Theory. Sample Syllabus. Jiahuan Lu University of Maryland, College Park Phone:

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1 Organization Theory Sample Syllabus Jiahuan Lu University of Maryland, College Park Phone: Course Description The purpose of this master-level course is to provide a venue for students to become exposed to knowledge, insights, and skills necessary to manage and lead public and nonprofit organizations. To achieve this goal, this course will survey the major topics, perspectives, and theories under the umbrella of organization theory over time, including organizational environments, goals and effectiveness, strategy and decision-making, structure and design, communication, leadership, culture, and other topics. Emphasis is placed on understanding both the theoretical development of the field and its many practical applications in real public and nonprofit management contexts. Students are encouraged to apply the theories and concepts of the subject matter covered in this course to their own individual fields of specialty or interest, and to draw from their experience and offer relevant insights to share with the class. Course Format A typical class will be divided into two parts. During the first half of the class, we will discuss assigned readings on a specific organization management topic. The instructor will provide an overview of the topic. One/two student(s) will then lead the discussion of readings. Discussion leaders should provide an overview of the readings, introduce questions and issues for examination, and facilitate the discussion. The focus should be on how these readings help us understand organizational behaviors and management, not just summarizing readings. Such discussions should be conducted in an interactive way, joined by the instructor and all students. In the second half of the meeting, we will study particular cases and explore how the theoretical concepts and ideas we ve covered could be applied to the cases being discussed and other more generic day-to-day management and leadership in public and nonprofit organizations. The case discussion will be led by the instructor, actively joined by all students. Course Materials Required Readings: Rainey, H. G. (2009). Understanding and Managing Public Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. In addition, we will be reading a number of case studies. All of the cases are available for purchase on-line:

2 Harvard Kennedy School Case (HKS), at Harvard Business School Case (HBS), at The names and numbers of the cases are included in the weekly readings below. Be sure to mark your status as Academic to receive a substantial discount on the purchase price. All of the other required readings for the course will be available on Blackboard. Recommended Readings: Scott, W.R., & Davis, G. (2007). Organizations and Organizing: Rational, Natural and Open Systems Perspectives. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. March, J. G., & Simon, H. A. (1958). Organizations. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Perrow, C. (1986). Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay. New York: Random House. Thompson, J.D. (1967). Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill. The following list includes some of the leading journals on public and nonprofit organization research. I encourage you to read articles on your topics of interest in these prestigious journals. Academy of Management Journal (AMJ), Academy of Management Review (AMR), Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ), Harvard Business Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (J-PART), Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (NVSQ), Public Administration Review (PAR), Sloan Management Review. Course Expectations The course requires extensive reading and class preparation as well as a high level of participation in class. Student assessment will be based on class participation, short memos, and final exam. I will be using the +/- grade system. Class Participation (20%) Active class participation means engagement, informed by knowledge of the readings and other materials, in class sessions and other aspects of the course. It requires more than simply coming to class and it does not mean an effort to dominate class discussion. Asking and responding to questions in ways informed by close attention to the readings is the best indication of effective class participation. In the first class, each student (or two students together) will choose a course topic that he/she/they would like to lead future discussions. We will talk about the detailed 2

3 requirements for discussion in the first class. Each student (except for discussion leaders) is required to prepare at least 2 or 3 discussion questions related to the assigned readings and bring the questions to the class. Please the questions to discussion leaders and copy to me by 5:00 pm on the day before class. However, in order to allow time to explore a smaller number of issues in greater depth, not every question will be discussed in class. Students should also prepare for the case discussions each week by identifying, and being prepared to participate in the class discussion, on: (1) the issues raised, (2) the relevant theory and practice (from readings, experience, etc.), and (3) your recommended actions and rationale. Case Memos (40%) Students are expected to submit four short memos among ten case studies throughout the semester. Memos are due in hard copy at the beginning of class. If more than four memos (up to five) are submitted, four highest grades will be recorded. The instructor will have all written assignments returned to you, graded and with comments, one week after they have been handed in. Requirements for written assignments: All written assignments should be clearly written and well organized. They are to be typed, no more than 3 pages each, double spaced, and 12 - Times New Roman format. All written assignments must be on time. Late assignments will not be accepted. All assignments will be anonymous; label your assignments using only your student ID numbers. Final exam (40%) There will be an open-book, take-home final exam on the materials covered in the course. You may consult all the readings and cases, but not anyone else, when writing your exam answers. The exam is typically made up of two theoretical questions (you will have the option to choose two from three) and one case study. You will be expected to finish the exam in 5 days. Again, label your assignments using only your student ID numbers. Course Overview Week # Topic 1 Introduction 2 Overview of Organization Theory; Publicness in Public Organizations 3 Internal Organization (1): Structure and Process 4 Internal Organization (2): Decision-making and Politics 5 Internal Organization (3): People, Team, and Control 6 Internal Organization (4): Culture and Identity 7 Management and Leadership 8 Organization and Environment (1): Overview 3

4 9 Organization and Environment (2): Interorganizational Network and Collaboration 10 Organization and Environment (3): Change and Innovation 11 Organizational Effectiveness and Performance 12 Wrap-up: Being An Effective Public & Nonprofit Manager CLASS SCHEDULE The course schedule is provided as a guideline and is subject to slight changes. Necessary revisions will be announced in class with as much advance notice as possible. *Students select topics to lead future discussions. Week One Introduction What is an organization? What are the basic elements of organizations? Why do we need organizations? What are the general perspectives in studying organizations (rational, natural, and open systems)? What are the current challenges in managing public and nonprofit organizations? Rainey, Ch. 1. Scott, W.R., & Davis, G. (2007). Organizations and organizing: Rational, natural and open systems perspectives. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Ch 1. p Ashley, W.G., & Van de Ven, A. (1983). Central perspectives and debates in organizational theory. Administrative Science Quarterly, 28(2), Week Two Overview of Organization Theory & Publicness in Public Organizations What is the intellectual development of organization theory like (Weber, Taylor, Follett, Merton, Barnard, Maslow, )? Pay attention to Exhibit 2.1 in Rainey (Ch. 2). Are public and private organizations different? If so, what are the differences? If not, why? 4

5 Rainey, Ch. 2 and 3. Shafritz J., Ott, J. S. & Jang, Y. S. (Eds.) (2010). Classics of organization theory. Boston: Wadsworth. The Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai, India: In Service for Sight (HBS Case ) 1. What does Dr. Venkataswamy need to do right in order to translate his vision for Aravind into reality? What does Aravind do in organizing its production process to accomplish these things? (Think particularly about attracting village patients, organizing the surgical process, and recruiting doctors.) 2. Can Aravind financially afford to increase the salaries it pays its doctors? If it can, should it? 3. What grade would you assign to Aravind s strategy and why? Week Three Internal Organization (1): Structure and Process What are the basic components when designing an organization? How does organizational structure affect organizational behavior? What is effective organizational design? Recall the discussion on bureaucratic structures. What are advantages and disadvantages of such structure? Can we abandon it? Rainey, Ch. 8, p Mintzberg, H. (1983). Structure in fives: Designing effective organizations. Prentice Hall. p. 1-3 and Chapter 2. 5

6 Radin, B. A. (1999). Managing decentralized departments: The case of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. IBM Center for the Business of Government. What If We Could Start Over? The US Forest Service Champions Bottom-up Management (A) (HKS Case ) 1. What are the virtues of rules/standard operating procedures (SOP s) in designing organizations? What are their drawbacks? For each virtue and drawback, be prepared to give an example from your personal work experience, your experience as a student, and/or the situation of the Forest Service in this case. 2. Overall, do you support the efforts of the Forest Service to gain greater freedom to move money more freely across budget categories? Why or why not? Is there any way to reconcile the demand of the Appropriations Committee for accountability and the desire within the Forest Service for fewer rules? Week Four Internal Organization (2): Decision-making and Politics Compare different models of decision making process (rational, incremental, garbage can, ). Prepare a short case of your interest to share with the class that could be analyzed using Allison s models. How do you think about the argument that decision is a matter of compromise? What are the sources of power in organizations? What are the factors influencing political behaviors in organizations? How do organizational politics affect managers and management? How to use politics strategically? Rainey, Ch. 7, p Allison, G. T. (1969). Conceptual models and the Cuban missile crisis. American Political Science Review, 63(3): Pfeffer, J. (1992). Understanding power in organizations. California Management Review, 34(2): Simon H.A. (1947). Administrative behavior. New York: Macmillan. 6

7 Pfeffer, J. (1992). Managing with power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kotter, J. P. (1977). Power, dependence, and effective management. Harvard Business Review, July/August: Columbia s Final Mission (HBS Case ) 1. Assess the performance of Rodney Rocha and Linda Ham. Did each do all what he or she should have done? 2. Why was it so hard to hold anyone accountable? 3. How organizational issues kept important technical concerns from being heard? 4. How organizations should deal with "ambiguous threats" - weak signals of potential crisis? Week Five Internal Organization (3): People, Team, and Control Recall the human relationship school in organization theory. What is the implication for human resource management? How do employee motivations affect organizational performance? Does public service motivation matter? How to enhance employee motivations? What are the dimensions in designing effective control mechanisms within organizations? What are the promise and pitfall of using pay-for-performance in public and nonprofit sectors? Rainey, Ch. 9 and Ch. 12 Ouchi, W. G. (1979). A conceptual framework for the design of organizational control mechanisms. Management science, 25(9), Moynihan, D. P., & Pandey, S. K. (2007). The role of organizations in fostering public service motivation. Public Administration Review, 67(1),

8 Nemeth, C. (1986). Differential contributions of majority and minority influence. Psychological Review, 93(1), Ingraham, P. W. (1993). Of pigs in pokes and policy diffusion: Another look at pay-forperformance. Public Administration Review, 53(4), Keeping an Open Mind in an Emergency: CDC experiments with Team B (HKS Case and ) 1. What are the possible problems to which a Team B at the CDC can be seen as a solution? 2. How might a Team B be used so as best to cope with these problems, if the goal is to improve the ability of the working team ( Team A ) to do its work? 3. What do you think of the idea of using Team B as an alternate source of information and opinions for a higher-level CDC decision maker? Week Six Internal Organization (4): Culture & Identity What are organizational culture and organization identity? How do they affect organizational behaviors and management? Is there a downside of organizational culture? Is there a link between organizational culture and performance? How to observe, measure, and manage culture and identity? Rainey, Ch. 11, p Albert, S.A., & Whetten, D. A. (1985). Organizational identity. Research in Organizational Behavior, 7, O'Reilly, C. A. (1989). Corporations, culture, and commitment: Motivation and social control in organizations. California Management Review, 89(31), Schein, E. H. (1983). The role of the founder in creating organizational culture. Organizational Dynamics, Summer,

9 Gioia, D.A., Schultz, M., & Corley, K.G. (2000). Organizational identity, image, and adaptive instability. Academy of Management Review, 25(1), Martin, J., & Frost, P. (1999). The organizational culture war games. In S. R. Clegg and C. Hardy (Eds.) Studying organization: Theory and method. London: Sage, p Mahler, J. (1997). Influences of organizational culture on learning in public agencies. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 7(4), Columbia s Final Mission (HBS Case ) McCurdy, H. E. (1992). NASA s organizational culture. Public Administration Review, 52(2), Donahue, A. K., & O'Leary, R. (2012). Do shocks change organizations? The case of NASA. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 22(3), What role did NASA s culture play in the Columbia disaster? 2. Put yourself in the shoes of the managers in the case, consider the following questions: What prior assumptions and beliefs shaped the way that you thought and behaved during the Columbia mission? What pressures affected your behavior? Where did these pressures originate? In what ways did the culture impact your actions? 3. If you were in that person s shoes during the Columbia mission, would you have behaved differently? Why or why not? Week Seven Management and Leadership What is leadership? How is leadership different from management? Why leadership is important? What leadership competencies are necessary to be an effective leader? What is the difference between transactional and transformational leadership? Rainey, Ch. 11 9

10 Katz, R. L. (1955). Skills of an effective administrator. Harvard Business Review, 33 (1), Kotter, J.P. (1990). What leaders really do. Harvard Business Review, 79 (11), Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard business review, 73(2), Mintzberg, H. (1990). The Manager's Job: Folklore and Fact. Harvard Business Review Northouse, P. G. (2001). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Rainey, H., & Thompson, J. (2006). Leadership and transformation of a major institution: Charles Rossotti and the Internal Revenue Service. Public Administration Review, 66 (4), Rudy Giuliani: The Man and His Moment (HKS Case ) 1. What life experiences and social and institutional resources helped Giuliani play such a special leadership role bringing the city and country together in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks? 2. What does the public need from their leadership in acute crisis situations? 3. How can leaders prepare themselves to rise to the moment in times of crisis? Week Eight Organization and Environment (1): Overview What are the general dimensions of organizational environments? Recall the differences between public and private organizations. How different are their environments? Compare different theoretical perspectives in studying organizational environment (population ecology, resource dependence, transaction cost, and institutionalism). What values should public organizations pursue? 10

11 Rainey, Ch. 4 Oliver, C. (1990). Determinants of interorganizational relationships: Integration and future directions. Academy of Management Review, 15(2), Allmendinger, J., & Hackman, J. R. (1996). Organizations in changing environments: The case of East German symphony orchestras. Administrative Science Quarterly, Rowan, B. (1982). Organizational structure and the institutional environment: The case of public schools. Administrative Science Quarterly, Business Process Transformation at the CIA (HKS Case and ) 1. What challenges does Dick Calder have in a changing political and fiscal environment? 2. Is it strange to you that Calder talks in terms of CIA mission directorates vis-à-vis the DA and of the White House vis-à-vis the CIA as a whole as being customers? Why or why not? 3. Is giveback a Rocky Aoki solution to the problems of delivering DA services? 4. Evaluate Calder s organizational change strategy. What do you like about it? What don t you like? Week Nine Organization and Environment (2): Interorganizational Network and Collaboration Public and nonprofit organizations are more and more often utilizing networks to solve complex problems that span organizational and sector boundaries. Why does network form of organizations occur, particularly in public organization context? What difficulties it brings to organization management? How can we effectively manage interorganizational networks? 11

12 O Leary, R., Gazley, B., McGuire, M., & Bingham, L. B. (2009). Public managers in collaboration, in Rosemary O Leary and Lisa Blomgren Bingham (eds.), The collaborative public manager. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Ring, P. S., & Van de Ven, A. H. (1994). Developmental processes of cooperative interorganizational relationships. Academy of Management Review, 19(1), Milward, H. B., & Provan, K. G. (2006). A manager s guide to choosing and using collaborative networks. IBM Center for the Business of Government. O Toole, L. J. (1997). Treating networks seriously: Practical and research-based agendas in public administration. Public Administration Review, 57(1), Powell, W. W. (1990). Neither market nor hierarchy: Network forms of organization. Research in Organizational Behavior, 12, Agranoff, R., & McGuire, M. (2003). Collaborative public management: New strategies for local governments. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Goldsmith, S., & Eggers, W. D. (2004). Governing by network: The new shape of the public sector. Washington, D.C.: Brookings. Bryson, J. M. et al. (2009). Designing and managing cross-sector collaboration: A case study in reducing traffic congestion. IBM Center for the Business of Government. Going it Together: Coventry s Community Safety Partnership (HKS Case CR ) 1. Why is it difficult to get agencies to work together on common problems that cross organizational boundaries? 2. What are some of the assets those interested in promoting interorganizational collaboration have available to try to promote such collaboration? Give examples from the case of how some of these assets were used to promote partnership working for community safety in Coventry. Are there approaches to promoting partnership working that Coventry could have used but didn't? 3. To what extent is the Coventry CDRP basically an effort to extend the resources available to traditional kinds of police work through assistance from other agencies, and to what extent does it represent a new approach to crime and disorder reduction? 12

13 Week Ten Organization and Environment (3): Change and Innovation Organizational change and innovation is a complicated job, which requires the knowledge we have covered in previous classes. So a revisit of previous discussions would help. Why organizations need changes? What are the benefits and risks associated with changes? What are the attributes of organizational innovations? What are the general sources of the resistance to change? How to manage changes? Patterns and steps of successful organizational changes. Rainey, Ch 13, p Coch. L., & French, J.R.P. (1948). Overcoming resistance to change. Human Relations, 1(4), Fernandez, S., & Rainey, H. G. (2006). Managing successful organizational change in the public sector. Public Administration Review, 66(2), Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1984). Structural inertia and organizational change. American sociological review, 49(2), March, J. G. (1981). Footnotes to organizational change. Administrative science quarterly, 26(4), Michelle Rhee and the Washington D.C. Public Schools (HKS Case ) 1. Should Rhee have adopted the approach Coch and French recommend for bringing about organizational change? Why or why not? 2. Rhee s first major action as superintendent was to close 15% of DC school buildings. Do you agree with her decision to choose this as her first major step? Why? If you disagree, what would you have done instead as the first major action -- and what would you have been trying to accomplish by the action you recommend? 13

14 3. Are there steps Rhee could/should realistically have taken to reduce opposition to her ideas among teachers and/or parents? Would these likely have advanced her organizational change agenda or not? Week Eleven Organizational Effectiveness and Performance Compare different approaches of effectiveness assessment (goal, system-resource, ). What are the dimensions of organizational effectiveness? Why measuring performance is so difficult? New development in performance measures (competing values, balanced scored, ). What challenges do interorganizational networks bring to performance measures? Rainey, Ch. 6 Hatry, H. P. (1999). Performance measurement. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. p , 59, Cameron, K. S. (1986). Effectiveness as paradox: Consensus and conflict in conceptions of organizational effectiveness. Management Science, 32(5), Quinn, R. E., & Rohrbaugh, J. (1981). A competing values approach to organizational effectiveness. Public Productivity Review, Provan, K. G., & Milward, H. B. (1995). A preliminary theory of interorganizational network effectiveness: A comparative study of four community mental health systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40, Mayor Anthony Williams and Performance Management in Washington, DC (HKS Case ) 1. Why did Anthony Williams choose scorecards as one of his first mayoral initiatives? What were the potential benefits and risks of this choice? If you were Mayor 14

15 Williams, would you be scared as you make performance commitments you may not meet? 2. Was it effective to set specific agency goals for Washington DC? Will setting and monitoring specific goals lead to better delivery of services? What are the drawbacks of using measurable goals in this setting? 3. Look at line managers use of performance measures at the Departments of Motor Vehicles and Consumer & Regulatory Affairs. What do you think about these measures? Be specific, and be sure to explain why you make the judgments. 4. What are arguments for why outcome measures are preferable to input/output measures? What are arguments for why input and/or output measures might be acceptable, or even superior to, outcome measures? Under what circumstances are input and/or output measures most appropriate, and when are outcome measures most appropriate? Rainey, Ch. 14 Week Twelve Wrap-up: Being An Effective Public & Nonprofit Manager Englehart, J. K. (2001). The marriage between theory and practice. Public Administration Review, 61(3), Sutton, R.I. & Staw, B.M. (1995). What theory is not. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(3),