Advanced Organization Theory

Modern organizations represent continuous tensions and paradoxes. Organizations have to learn to deal with these paradoxes. This course focuses on the themes and tensions that are central in organization theory.

We focus on exploring various perspectives to improve our understanding of the following themes:

• Organizations and organizing
• Organizations and external environment
• Physical and social structures of the organizations
• Organization culture
• Power, control and conflicts
• Paradoxes in organizations
• New perspectives in organization theory

This course focuses on the themes and tensions that are central in organization theory. The course is theoretical, but aims also at better understanding of how various theoretical perspectives can be used to reflect on actions and processes within real organizations.

Knowledge

After completing the course students:

• Realize the value of being able to study organizations from different theoretical angles. This is an important knowledge that one may apply in working life.
• Can describe what organizations are and why and how they exist, how organizations look like and what/whom they are composed of,
• What processes take place within the organization and across organizations.
• Have learned organization theories and main concepts that improve their ability to understand and act in organizations.

Skills

After completed course, students can:

• Critically reflect on organizations and organization processes
• Apply different organization theoretical perspectives and organization concepts to analyze real organizations, status and processes ,
• Analyze, suggest and implement various measures and actions to make organizations more effective and adaptive.

General competence

After completed course the students can:

• Analyze organization from different theoretical angles
• Describe which practical and ethical dilemmas organization are faced with,
• Which practical and ethical challenges organizations meet,
• Have a knowledge about how one can create appropriate structure, technology, and culture that support organization activities and its adaptation to external environment.

Lectures, case- and group work.