ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN AND CHANGE

In today’s volatile world, organizational design and change are ongoing activities and challenges for everyone, whether managing a global enterprise or a small work team in the private, public or pluralist sectors. Globalization, worldwide competition, deregulation, digital transformation and intensifying environmental and political challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss or rising authoritarianism drive the ongoing reassessment of the organization. The organizational response has been many new forms of organizational design: matrix, virtual, modular, agile, network, “spaghetti” or “holacracy” – to name a few. New organizational forms challenge old ways of organizing for efficiency and effectiveness.

Basic knowledge of business economics and management. Daft, R. L., Willmott, H., Murphy, J. (2020). Organization Theory & Design: An International Perspective. UK: Cengage Learning (o similar contents from other handbooks).

Knowledge and understanding: The course will offer key conceptual tools to design organizations in global, complex and uncertain environments. 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 glocal scale (global and local), in private firms, public administrations and NGOs. Applying knowledge and understanding: The students will be able to: - apply organization models on a global scale, such as Multinational Companies, crowd-based organizations etc. - compare pros and cons of each organizational choice - analyze how and why organizations make decisions to face an evolving environment - apply foundations of business research - apply research approaches and quantitative methods to organizational design - apply methods of change management Making judgements: We expect students to be able to dissect complex organizational issues, analyze them and propose solutions. Students are expected to be able to discuss and evaluate key organizational choices, as well as to evaluate the cognitive and political embeddedness of change processes. Throughout the whole course, students will be invited to critically analyze when, how and why certain organizational choices are adopted and how to favor a change for their implementation. 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 change. 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. The case study discussions, a study project, the simulations, the presentation of scientific papers and the classroom experiment will increase experiential learning and critical thinking for all students involved in the course.

In this course, we will deal with organizational design as a managerial approach to demands for change in the organization. The theoretical basis are the contingency and institutional approaches and their application in a dynamic perspective. An important element in this context is strategic, organizational and institutional fits. A fit is a match between the organization and its environment, strategy, technology, size and institutional context. There may also be fits among these factors. The theory of fits provides management with an opportunity to assess the organization design and change it regularly. The issues include multi-dimensional causal relationships, non-linearity and longitudinal perspectives - elements in studies of new forms of organization and their cultural origins. The course will also tackle the challenges related to organizational redesign and change.

Course materials, as reported week by week. In addition, groups will be assigned during class the presentation of one article each. Supplementary readings (mandatory only for non-attending students): • Cunha, M. P., Clegg, S., Gaim, M., & Giustiniano, L. (2022). Elgar introduction to designing organizations. Edward Elgar Publishing. • Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2016). Organization development & change.

During the course, the following teaching methods will be applied: • Lectures • Study project in working groups • Discussion of case studies • Group presentations of papers Teaching activities integrate face-to-face lectures, role playing and simulations with the analysis of business cases performed by both the instructor and the students. Students will be required to join practical 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 student's ability to put into practice the methods of organizational design, analysis and change acquired during the lectures.

The final grade will be based on the following: Continuous assessment, which consists of: A paper presentation by groups of students. The paper will be randomly assigned to each group at the beginning of the course. A project developed by groups of students. Groups will be expected to empirically test a research question and to present their work in class. More information about the composition of groups and the characteristics of projects will be shared with students during the first week of the course. A final written exam consisting of open-ended and multiple-choice questions, as well as of a short case study discussion (total duration 60 minutes). Activities inherent to the paper presentation as well as to the project will contribute in total to 1/3 of the final grade. The final exam contributes to the 2/3 of the final grade. The program for non-attending students will require to study all readings mentioned in the syllabus, both the compulsory and the supplementary readings (see list of textbooks). The exam for non-attending students will include 4 additional questions on the contents on those readings. The total duration is 90 minutes.

Master thesis assignment is based on the novelty and quality of the project that students will present. The project (2/3 pages) must include: • Research Question(s) • Table of contents • Abstract • Main references