Organizational Studies 100: Organizational Theory
Fall Semester, 2016

Meeting Time: Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:00 – 12:15		Room: Fletcher Hall 112
Professor: Jeff Lewis	Office: Fletcher 214 Phone: 607-3069
E-Mail: jeff_lewis@pitzer.edu	Web page: http://www.pitzer.edu/~jlewis
Office hours: Mondays at 2:30 pm, Wednesdays at 10 am, and by appointment
Texts: 1. Morgan, Gareth (2006). Images of Organizations (Revised Edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 2. Senge, Peter, , Smith Bryan, Kruschwitz, Nina, Laur, Joe, and Schley, Sara (2010). The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World. New York: Bantum Books 3. Assorted readings posted on Sakai. Note that additional readings will be posted throughout the semester, and these additions will be noted during class meetings.

Goals of the Course

This class examines the major ideas that shape the way we think about how people and institutions organize their groups and work settings. Organizational theorists include a long list from F. W. Taylor and Max Weber, to systems theorists, postmodern and more recent scholars. Using metaphors as our vantage point, we hope to obtain fuller understanding of each view as we contrast important perspectives and theoretical orientations. After a thorough review, we will also examine key concepts and core issues from contemporary and classic views of organizational theory. Organizations and Sustainability emerges as the focus in the latter part of the class when we will shift to discussing how organizations can be designed to better address larger environmental pressures.

This course and the Organizational Studies major as a whole are also aligned with the college’s educational objectives. In this course it is hoped that students’ work will exemplify critical thinking, effective expression, interdisciplinary appreciation, intercultural understanding, and ethical evaluations.

In addition, this course is designed to help students achieve the following objectives:

• Gain an appreciation of the place of organizations in our society in terms of what they are and how they have evolved.
• Develop a better understanding of the complexities of organizational life and theoretical perspectives that help us describe these complex entities.
• Work individually and in teams to develop a more complex view of the way we can describe and analyze the functioning of organizations we have experienced and researched.

Expectations

Your active participation in this course will enhance not only your learning but also the experience we co-create in this class. You are expected to prepare fully prior to the class, reading the assigned material before the class sessions and coming prepared with questions that you want answered. The major assignments in this course allow for extended preparation, and working with your fellow students as you absorb the material is encouraged. Good cooperation and conscientiousness when engaged in collaborative work is crucial and should be characteristic of all team projects in this course. Individual papers and assignments are exclusively your own product, however, and it is expected that works collected from you to meet these course requirements will be of your own creation. You are required to adhere to the College’s Code of Student Conduct, which upholds academic integrity and prohibits academic dishonesty, including those forms of academic dishonesty that are listed in the Pitzer College Student Handbook.

Course Requirements
Take-Home Essay Exams (45%) class topics and edited discussion questions used in class will form the basis for the take-home exams. I hope this will help us focus our discussion and motivate the exploration of the topics each question raises. There will be three take-home exams, each covering approximately one third of the course material.

Metaphorical Case Analysis (35%): One of the main themes in this course will be the use of different models or metaphors for organizations, where the taking of new perspectives will help us understand important aspects of organizational life and function. For this assignment, you will be asked to prepare a short analysis of an organizational experience of your choice. You can select either an organization you worked in or one you can research, but your selection should allow for a vivid and thought-provoking extension of the class material. The paper should highlight a significant issue confronting the organization, apply two perspectives from Morgan’s work, evaluate potential directions and take into account the views of relevant stakeholders.

Class participation (20%) – Each week you are expected to contribute your thoughts and analysis of the readings and to complete any weekly assignment. You will also be asked to contribute to the class activities related to group presentations and hand in any in-class work throughout the semester. While attendance is not required, frequent absences are likely to diminish your learning, and as, it is important to interact, connect to the material and support your fellow classmates as we construct our learning environment, your overall grade may also suffer.

Writing Center – Located in 131 Mead Hall, just across from the fountain, the Pitzer Writing Center offers students free one-on-one conferences with peer Fellows trained to consult on assignments in all disciplines at any stage of the writing process, from brainstorming ideas to polishing a final draft. The Writing Center is one of Pitzer’s most popular academic resources, holding over 1,500 appointments each year. I strongly urge you to make early and frequent use of this resource throughout the writing process. Please visit the Writing Center’s website for more information: http://pitweb.pitzer.edu/writing-center

Students from other campuses are encouraged to visit their local Writing Centers:

• Claremont McKenna Center for Writing and Public Discourse: http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/writing/

• Harvey Mudd College Writing Center: https://www.hmc.edu/learning-programs/writing-center/

• Pomona Writing Center: http://www.pomona.edu/academics/resources/writing-center/center/

• Scripps Writing Center: http://www.scrippscollege.edu/departments/writing-program/writing-center

•

Schedule of Lectures and Readings

Week and Topical Focus								Readings and assignments
August 31^st Organizing the class								---
September 5^th & 7^th Theories and Organizations								Sakai Reading - Hatch Ch. 1 & Astley & Van de Ven (1983)
September 12^th & 14^th		Metaphors and Concepts						Morgan Ch. 1; Sakai Readings (S) - Hatch Ch. 2
September 19^th & 21^st		Organizations as Machines						Morgan Ch. 2; S – Taylor’s principles & Weber on Bureaucracy
September 26^th & 28^th	Organic model							Morgan Ch. 3; S – Luthans & Stewart (1977)
October 3^rd & 5^th	Learning Organizations							Morgan Ch. 4; S – Fiol & Lyles (1985)
Take-Home Exam one due in dropbox on 10-5
October 10^th & 12^th Cultural Perspective								Morgan Ch. 5
Fall Break – October 15^th through October 18^th (no class on October 17^th)
October 19^th Politics and Power				Morgan Ch. 6; S – Wiltermuth & Flynn (2013)
Paper Proposals due in dropbox by 10-19
October 24^th & 26^th Psychic Prisons				Morgan Ch. 7
Oct. 31^st & Nov. 2^nd Chaos and Complexity				Morgan Ch. 8; S- Brown & Eisenhardt (1999)
November 7^th & 9^th Domination							Morgan Ch. 9
Take-Home Exam two due in dropbox on 11-9
November 14^th & 16^th			Call for Sustainability			Senge et al. Chs. 1-4; S – Bansal & Roth (2000)
November 21^st Strategies and Relationships				Senge et al. Chs. 5-9
Thanksgiving Break November 24^th – 27^th (no class November 23^rd)
November 28^th & 30^th Systems and Collaboration					Senge et al. Chs. 12-17
December 5^th & 7^th Future paths Senge et al. Chs. 19-26
Final: Third Take-Home exam and Case Papers due during finals week

ORST100: Organizational Theory

Case Analysis Paper: Applying Morgan’s metaphors

Prepare and submit a case study that analyzes an organization’s experience using some of the lenses provided by Morgan. The case situation could be one where you were either a participant, close observer or otherwise can obtained detailed knowledge through published sources. Your paper should loosely follow the method outlined in Chapter 11 of Images, and your analysis should be centered on a practice, events, or an outcome that you believe would be illustrative of important points of contrast. In general, your analysis should show how the metaphorical lenses allow us to see different things from the evidence you describe, and your comparison and contrast should be based on the concepts introduced in Morgan with help from other class material. Your paper should:

· Describe the case, providing adequate detail for the reader to gain a sense of the context, important stakeholders as well as the events and issues at hand.

· Following from the example case described in Chapter 11, apply Morgan’s method and examine the experience from two contending metaphorical perspectives in a way that demonstrates an understanding of the key elements of each perspective as discussed in the relevant chapters.

· Critically evaluate the assertions based on the available data and conclude with an evaluation of the worth of what was gleaned from each perspective.

The paper should not exceed 12 pages in length (not including your reference section) and use the APA formatting and documentation style or its equivalent. A proposal that introduces your selected case, the chosen metaphorical perspectives you plan to apply, and listing of key sources for background material and support is due after fall break.

The structure of your paper will vary depending upon the problem you are addressing, but one might tackle an issue by dealing with some of the following points:

· A historical overview that situates the organization into their present state.

· What changes have occurred and what challenges do they face?

· Listing of operations or programs already attempted or underway, and proposed possibilities for the future.

· Key decisions made and an evaluation of their outcomes.

This introduction should provide enough detail to enable you to illustrate key aspects of your chosen metaphorical perspectives. After the descriptive summary that brings us to the present state, apply two of Morgan’s metaphors to help interpret events, operations and/or practices. Sometimes the issues you address may be due to competing worldviews or holding on to a belief system that worked in the past but now is beyond its usefulness. But in many cases, two or more possible perspectives may be operating and neither is correct in any objective sense. They simply lead to different conclusions.

When applying the metaphors, you should be able to explain the situation from each point of view, state a determination of the problem and then offer viable solutions for the challenges faced. Once these are stated, use research findings cited in Morgan and elsewhere to help you assess the viability of solutions that would follow from each view.