MN7203
Course Description
This course centres on critically understanding the functioning and behaviour of organizations as it is relevant to the people who work in them. Central to this are practices of responsible management and organizing – a theme that runs through the entire course.
Key topics include.
• Power and authority in organizations as it relates to conceptions of bureaucracy and post-bureaucracy
• How power and resistance operate at an individual and organizational level.
• Leadership practice in organizations with special attention to issues of justice and responsible decision making.
• Culture and organizations with special focus on organizational activities designed to develop particular values and behaviours amongst employees
• How organizational storytelling is used to both reproduce and contest organizational culture,
• The relationships between organizational culture and popular culture.
• How organizations manage and are influenced by difference and how ideas about diversity can be understood, especially in terms of gender, cultural and national diversity.
Course Objectives:
At the end of this course you will be able to:
• To consider fundamental organizational concepts of structure, culture, power and identity in relation to the ways people are managed
• To identify the different ways that power operates in organizations and how that power can be resisted
• To describe the three levels of organizational justice and how this relates to ethical organizational practice
• To assess and compare the main theoretical approaches to decision making in organizations
• To identify and understand the different levels of organizational culture, and how culture influences individual behaviour and identity
• To articulate the meaning and practices of organizational storytelling and how they relate to corporate and organizational culture
• To consider the different ways that organizations are represented in popular culture and what this means for understanding real organizations
• To describe the relationship between gender and organizations in relation to both individual opportunity/discrimination and organizational identity
• To identify and critique dominant approaches to international management
Assessment % Due Date
Essay 100% tba
Lecture Outline:
Lecture 1 9 Oct. Introduction: Studying and Working in Organizations
Lecture 2 16 Oct. Bureaucracy and Organizational Structure
Lecture 3 23 Oct. Power and Resistance in Organizations
Lecture 4 30 Oct. Decision Making in Organizations
Lecture 5 6 Nov. Organizational Justice
Lecture 6. 13 Nov Organizational Culture and Values
Lecture 7. 20 Nov The Storytelling Organization
Lecture 8 27 Nov Organizations and Popular Culture
Lecture 9 4 Dec Gender and Organization
Lecture 10 11 Dec. International Management
Workshops:
There are nine weekly 2-hour workshops. Attendance at the workshops is mandatory.
There are four workshop groups that meet weekly from Week 2 (commencing Monday 17 October):
Group Time Location
Group 4 Tuesday, 13:00-15:00 KE 501
Group 3 Tuesday, 15:00-17:00 ATT 206
Group 2 Wednesday 11:00-13:00 ATT 206
Group 1 Wednesday 15:00-17:00 KE 528
There is one assigned reading for each workshop which will be available on the module Blackboard site. It is expected that you will have read this prior to the workshop. Further materials will be distributed at the workshops themselves.
The workshop readings are:
Workshop 1
Week of 14 Oct McSweeney, B. (2006) Are We Living In A Post-Bureaucratic Epoch? Journal of Organizational Change Management, 19(1): 22–37.
Workshop 2
Week of 21 Oct Fleming, P. (2005) ‘Kindergarten Cop’: Paternalism and Resistance in a High-Commitment Workplace, Journal of Management Studies, 42(7): 1469-1489.
Workshop 3
Week of 28 Oct Clegg, S.R., Kornberger, M. and Rhodes, C. (2007) Organizational Ethics, Decision Making, Undecidability’, The Sociological Review, 52(2): 393-409.
Workshop 4
Week of 4 Nov Rhodes, C. (2013) ‘Ethics, Alterity and the Rationality of Leadership Justice’, Human Relations, 65(10): 1311-1331.
Workshop 5
Week of 11 Nov Rosen, M. (1988) You Asked For It: Christmas at the Boss’s Expense, Journal of Management Studies, 25(5): 463-480.
Workshop 6
Week of 18 Nov Boje, D. (1995) Stories of the Storytelling Organization: A Postmodern Analysis of Disney as “Tamara-Land“, Academy of Management Journal, 38(4): 997-1035.
Workshop 7
Week of 25 Nov Rhodes, C. (2001) D’Oh: The Simpsons, Popular Culture and the Organizational Carnival, Journal of Management Inquiry. 10(4): 374-383
Workshop 8
Week of 2 Dec Williams, C.L., Muller, C. and Kilanski, K. (2012) Gendered Organizations in the New Economy, Gender and Society, 26(4): 549-573.
Workshop 9
Week of 9 Dec Rhodes, C. and Westwood, R. (2007) Letting Knowledge Go: Ethics and the Representation of the Other in the Practice of International and Cross-Cultural Management’ in C. Carter, S.R. Clegg , , M. Kornberger, S. Laske and M. Mesner (Eds.) pp. 68-83, Business Ethics as Practice: Representation, Discourse and Performance, London: Edward Elgar.
Assignment:
The assignment comprises an essay of 4000 words addressing the following question:
With reference to an organisation you know well (such as a past or current employer) describe and analyse the organization in terms of:
• The culture of the organization as it relates to both ‘organizational culture’ and ‘corporate culture’.
• The structure and power relations in the organizations
• The dominant approach to decisions making and how this accounts for issues of equity and justice
The Learning Outcomes of this essay are intended to be your integration of the key topics covered in this module as well as the development of your own perspective on the importance and value of those topics. You will demonstrate a grasp of the key theoretical elements and arguments, and be able to critically discuss and evaluate their contribution to understanding organizations.
Marking Criteria
Essays will be marked on:
1. demonstration of analytic understanding of the topic through discussion of core concepts and assumptions, theoretical approaches, extant literature;
2. quality of development of reasoned and effective discussion through ability to construct coherent argument, assess strengths and weaknesses, utilise relevant examples and or literature;
3. extent of depth and breadth of understanding of organizational theory and analysis through effective discussion of a range of core issues, theoretical components, knowledge of key arguments, and relevant literature.
Textbooks
Core Text book
Knights, D. and Willmott, H. (2011) Organizational Analysis: Essential Readings. Hampshire: Cengage Learning.
Highly Recommended Texts
Hatch, Mary Jo, (2006) Organization Theory: Modern, Symbolic and Postmodern Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press.
Robbins, Stephen and Barnwell, N. (2006) Organization Theory: Concepts and Cases, NSW, Australia: Pearson Education.
Linstead, S.; Fulop, L.; and Lilley, S. (2006) Management and Organization: A Critical Text. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Clegg, S. Kornberger, M. Pitsis, T. (2008) Managing and Organizations, Lond: Sage.
Daft, R. (2007) Organization Theory and Design, Ohio, USA: Thomson.
Morgan, G. (1995) Images of Organization, California. Sage.
Additional Reading Recommendations:
Ackroyd, S. et al. (eds.) (2005). The Oxford Handbook of Work and Organization, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Casey, C. (2002).Critical Analysis of Organizations, London: Sage.
Castells, M, (1996). The Rise of the Network Society, Oxford: Blackwell.
Di Maggio, P, (ed.) (2001). The Twenty-first Century Firm: Changing Economic Organization in International Perspective, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
Du Gay. P,(2000). In Praise of Bureaucracy London: Sage.
Fischer, F, and Sirianni, C, (eds.),(1994). Critical Studies in Organization and Bureaucracy, Philadelphia, Temple University Press.
Grey, C and H. Willmott (eds) (2005). Critical Management Studies: A Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Parker, M, (2002). Against Management, Cambridge UK: Polity.
Journals:
Organization Studies;
Organization;
Human Relations;
Culture and Organization;
Administrative Science Quarterly;
Academy of Management Review;
Journal of Management Studies.
A wide range of texts and journals are available addressing classical and contemporary questions in organizational theory and analysis. Students are encouraged to explore the Library’s holdings and to read some books thoroughly.
