This course will help advanced management students to think about designing organizations to be fit for contemporary purposes. In traditional terms, design was conceived as a rational, top-down decision relating to the structuring of responsibilities, accountabilities and organization processes. In contemporary terms: a) design is often a process with paradoxical attributes; b) organization design and human resources management are interwoven. Informed by both research-driven and problem-solving oriented logics, the course will deal with some of the most modern trends and solutions in management, exploring fields and managerial experiments for which the unknown is larger than the known, such as: crowd-open and crowd-based organizations, networks, platforms and complex global organizational settings. This course explores the drivers of global business organization design and the role of human resource management in ensuring that human resources can “make it happen” sustainably. We will consider: a) the modern issues of organization design; b) the implication of “open organizing”; c) the context of global human resource management.

Knowledge and understanding: The course will offer key conceptual tools to design organizations and HRM systems in global setting. This course provides advanced knowledge and analytical resources that will enable students to understand the processes, content and consequences of organizational decisions to be implemented on a global scale, both in public and private, profit-oriented and non-profit settings. Applying knowledge and understanding: The students will be able to: • apply organization models on a global scale, such as Multinational Companies, large Non-Governmental Organizations, crowd-based organizations • compare pros and cons of each organizational choice • analyze how and why organizations make decisions to face an evolving environment • recognize paradoxical tensions Making judgements: We expect students to be able to dissect complex organizational issues, analyze them and propose solutions. They are expected to be able to discuss and evaluate key organizational choices. Throughout the whole course, students will be invited to critically analyze when, how and why certain organizational choices are pursued. Communications Skills: This course will give the students the possibility to acquire and understand major terms and concepts in order to communicate their ideas, proposals, analysis and critical reasoning in the field of organization design and human resource management. Learning skills: This course will empower learners giving them the tools to determine why certain organizational choices are made and how different alternatives are assessed.

This course introduces students to advanced contents of global organization design and to the field of global human resource management (HRM). The course will also show that organization design and HRM are not always rational, top-down decision but they rather present paradoxical attributes. We focus on major trends in and types of design. The goal is to discuss the most important issues that decision-makers operating in today’s globalized business setting must consider when designing organizations and managing human resource management (HRM) in different national settings. The course materials consist of readings, movies and case studies. The texts and ideas are from various disciplines, including management & economics, comparative sociology, and business ethics.

TEXTBOOK: Cunha, M.P., Clegg, S., Gaim, M., Giustiniano, L. (2022), Elgar Introduction to Designing Organizations, forthcoming, open access, ISBN: 978 1 80392 218 8 (freely available, open access: https://www.elgaronline.com/monobook-oa/book/9781803922195/9781803922195.xml). Unless covered by copyright restrictions, mandatory and supplementary readings are available via the MyLuiss on-line platform (i.e., some HBR cases must be acquired by students). Considering the definitions reported in the University's Didactic Regulations (Regolamento Didattico di Ateneo) and the Graduate School student handbook, ‘compliant’ students have to refer to the textbook and the ‘mandatory’ materials; the ‘supplementary’ readings become mandatory for ‘non-compliant’ students (hereinafter referred as ‘integrated program’).

Students’ active participation during classes is strongly encouraged. In-class activities are synergically complementary to conceptual classes. - Lectures 60% - in class activities, case discussion 40% Teaching activities integrate lectures, explanation of concepts with the analysis of business cases performed by both the instructors and the students. Students will be required to join training sessions and analyze or discuss, individually or within small groups, case studies focused on the resolution of organizational problems and the definition of the different organizational configurations that can be adopted in different strategic and environmental contexts. These sessions are useful to evaluate students’ ability to put into practice the methods of organizational design and analysis acquired during the lectures.

• ATTENDING, COMPLIANT STUDENTS: 1/3: continuous assessment (written test) 2/3: final exam (written exam) • NON-COMPLIANT STUDENTS: ONLY FINAL EXAM (WRITTEN EXAM, on the ‘integrated program’) Both the continuous-assessment test and the final exam are structured as an essay, based on an ad hoc case and two/four open questions to be answered (10+40/80 minutes: text reading + execution), covering the course topics and materials covered up to that point (classes, textbook, mandatory readings and cases). At the final exam non-compliant students will have to answer six exam questions (re: “integrated program”, including both mandatory and supplementary readings; 10+120 minutes: text reading + execution). The test and the exam will be carried out in a “paper and pen” mode, with no access to notes or electronic devices. In case of doubt (e.g., excessively homogeneous answers among them, Gen-AI detection tool with wide score), we reserve the right to ask students to take an oral exam. The oral exam will not aim to raise the grade but to confirm the existing one (or lower it in case of negative performance). For final exam the University’s and the Graduate School’s rules will apply: “the student will be allowed to withdraw for the duration of the test, but in case the student turns in the assignment, the grade received may not be refused by the student in any way.” In case of absence or withdrawal from the continuous assessment test, students’ score will be considered as 0.

No further specific requirements: the sooner the better for choosing subject and methodology. Master thesis assignment is based on a project presented by the student. The project (2/3 pages) must include: • Table of contents • Abstract • Main references