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Conflict is unavoidable in every organization. The key question is how it will be handled: will it escalate to dysfunctional levels or will it be effectively managed? Hence, a first aim of the course is to develop your ability to analyze conflicts, to look beneath the surface rhetoric of a conflict, to isolate the important underlying interests, and to determine what sort of agreement (if any) is feasible. We'll analyze which negotiation strategies are effective in different conflicts. We'll also examine psychological and structural factors that create conflict and often pose a barrier to its resolution. But understanding how to analyze a conflict is not enough. To manage conflict effectively, you need a broad repertoire of behavioral skills. Developing these is the second aim of the course. To achieve this, negotiation exercises are used in every session. When playing a role in a simulated conflict, you will be free to try out tactics that might feel uncomfortable in a real one. You will get feedback from your classmates about how you come across. In sum, you can use this course to expand your repertoire of skills, to hone your skills, and to become more adept in choosing when to apply each skill.

Thinking about starting a company that might change the world? In this compressed course, we go beyond the standard texts of how to build a startup. We provide budding entrepreneurs the opportunity to learn from the real-world experiences of a remarkable collection of experienced entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. They have each succeeded in funding or launching businesses that have had a positive impact on millions of people. This is a chance for you to bring your own venture ideas to class and learn how to develop them.

Why do large, successful companies often have such difficulty in disrupting themselves (e.g., Kodak, Blockbuster, Borders)? How do you maintain an entrepreneurial edge within an existing enterprise? How do you sustain core businesses while simultaneously adapting to disruptive threats? In this course, students will build the skills to spot threats and opportunities earlier and capture them faster. The course will take a look at some of the most successful "creators within corporations" and discern why some strategies succeed when others do not. We will explore the framework that some companies have developed to simultaneously compete in their core business while exploring new ones. To do this we will interact with guests from firms like Walmart, Amazon, General Motors, Flex and IBM as well as venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. Our objective is to help students understand in some detail what it takes to help organizations stay ahead of disruptive threats and to avoid problems that often lead companies into decline.

This course examines organization culture, how and why managers can use culture to maximize results within an organization, and how culture can undermine results. The course begins by situating cultural leadership and management within a culture-shaping framework and the opportunities, obligations and methods for leaders to impact culture. It also focuses on what is different in cultural management and why so many contemporary firms attempt to use it. We analyze the relationship between culture and strategy, seeking alignment between the two. The course also explores different kinds of cultures seen in high performing and low performing organizations, and seeks to understand how cultural content affects behavior and business results. Students will be asked to describe and define the culture of an organization needed for a given business and strategy, and to define the role of executives in shaping culture. The class identifies and analyzes the tools or levers that leaders can use to build an effective culture. We will spend a session on each of the following: culture and strategy alignment, architecture for shaping culture, selecting people for cultural alignment, aligning organizational practices, culture and society, cultural inflection points from start-up to scale, cultural aspects of high performance and cultural diagnostics. The course will end with a session on culture issues in merger and acquisition.

This course combines insights from psychological research and theater practice to explore how power and status play a role in most social and professional interactions. Exercises drawn from actor training will illustrate how power is decoded and performed, while lectures from organizational behavior highlight the most relevant conceptual frameworks and empirical findings. Then, coached by theater professionals, students will prepare and present scenes from actual plays, as well as roleplay situations they have found especially challenging to experiment with new ways of showing up. In the process, this course will allow students to explore their comfort with playing high vs. low power, to consider the associations they have with power, and to question the potential tension between behaving authentically and acting in ways that best serve their group and values.

The careers of individuals are shaped by their movement within and between organizations, whether those be established employers or entrepreneurial ventures. Conversely, organizations of all sizes are shaped by the flows of individuals through them as individuals construct careers by pursuing different opportunities. This course will examine sociological and economic theory and research on this mutually constitutive relationship. Possible topics include inequality and attainment processes, internal labor markets, mobility dynamics, individual and organizational learning, ecological influences, gender and racial segregation, discrimination, and entrepreneurship as a career process.

This is a course in the design of social research, with a particular emphasis on research field (i.e., non-laboratory) settings. As such, the course is a forum for discussing and developing an understanding of the different strategies social theorists employ to explain social processes, develop theories, and make these theories as believable as possible. In general, these issues will be discussed in the context of sociological research on organizations, but this will not be the exclusive focus of the course. A range of topics will be covered, for example: formulating and motivating research questions; varieties of explanation; experimental and quasi-experimental methods, including natural experiments; counterfactual models; conceptualization and measurement; sampling and case selection; qualitative and quantitative approaches. This course is particularly oriented toward developing an appreciation of the tradeoffs of different approaches. It is well suited to Ph.D. students working on qualifying papers and dissertation proposals.

Focus is on breath, voice production, expansion of vocal range and stamina, and clarity of articulation. Geared toward public speaking including presentations, lectures, and job talks. May be taken in conjunction with ORALCOMM 117. ORALCOMM 115/215 was previously listed as CTL 115/215.

The principles and practice of effective oral communication. Through formal and informal speaking activities, students develop skills framing and articulating ideas through speech. Strategies for speaking extemporaneously, preparing and delivering multimedia presentations, formulating persuasive arguments, refining critical clarity of thought, and enhancing general facility and confidence in oral self-expression. ORALCOMM 117/217 was previously listed as CTL 117/217.