chapter 1,2,7,8,9,10 for mid-term
chapter 1: managing people in organizations
chapter 2: managing and organizations
chapter 7: managing power, politics and decision-making
chapter 8: managing communications
part three: managing organizational processes and structures
chapter 9: managing knowledge and learning
chapter 10: managing innovation and change
,Lecture 1: Introduction
New things discussed in each lecture:
● The Silent Hand
● The Scherdertje
● Havel’s ideal
● Kafka and Huxley, and much more
4 guest lectures, they will have direct links to the mid-term and the final exam.
Tip: read the textbook after the lecture. Sixth edition. There’s a large overlap with previous editions
but also new information in the new edition. Recommendation to use the most recent version.
Do we have to memorize every aspect? No, you don’t have to memorize every single element in the
textbook. Chip away at the less relevant information. Example: greenwashing, p.355. There will be a
tutorial about greenwashing. So in conclusion, it’s an important topic. Exam training is not weekly.
Essayistic response style in the exam:
- response structure
- word count constraints
- write during the exam, formulate your ideas and opinions
- ground your ideas with the literature
Wednesday tutorials will have a high grade of AI usage, to improve our game. An example used is the
game of chess. In preparation of the match the chess master would practice with powerful computers,
but for the match he will be alone.
Thursday tutorials are really aimed at applying concepts. So case studies, group discussions, and there
will be a test. And a graded group assignment; this will be 25% of your final grade.
Tip is to not make active notes on the lecture. Take the opportunity to question and intervene.
Bloom’s taxonomy for learning. Need to know: processes for sensemaking, greenwashing etc. You
need to know certain things. So the basic knowledge, but not every detail. You become more creative
with the explanations in the exam.
Lecture 2: Chapter 1+2 and ‘Buildung’
Chapter 1:
- reflect on what organizations are
- getting a feel for what is ‘managing’
Mathematics is a very pure language, describing specific ideas. ‘building pyramids that have a very
long lifespan. It’s very different from organization theory. Compare it to being a biologist. Being
someone in the jungle. Making a path to unknown destinies. What do BM and OT have in common?
Precision. Mathematics requires a lot of precision. The steps need to be taken very precisely. How do
we assess validity? We use clarity and theoretical grounding. They require precision in thinking. You
need to be very precise in your thinking. That’s the overlap between the two.
Hand-raising technique: so we all talk at the same time. When the lecturer raises his hand, we need to
be quiet. How fast does the room get quiet? Is it a collective good idea or does the lecturer prefer to be
the one in charge, have all the power, pull all the strings and he decides who gets to talk?
, Chapter 1: Managing and Organizations
What are the authors trying to convey or accomplish?
How/what are they thinking?
It’s an introductory chapter. It lays out the structure and explains what the chapters are all about. So it
is important to start building your mental model about what the book is trying to tell you.
Organization’s context: they develop at a rapid pace. The book is trying to explain to you what the
organization’s context is. What is happening with them?
A key element that I have from Chapter 1 is the simple question: What are organizations? To do that
we are going to do another experiment.
GEFORCE RTX. It’s a product developed by a product developer. (The lecturer now assigns people
out of the crowd to be one of the ‘developers, marketeers, pre-sales director, head of consulting
services, salesforce manager, it’s important to have a large partner network, we need a legal director, a
head of business operations, head of HRM) This is what an organization represents, there is
movement, dynamic. You can’t just understand this by reading the textbook. You need to visualize
what it is all about. What organizations do is they provide a service or develop a product. Barbara
Iweins: Katalog. She categorized all the objects in her house. She grouped them by color. It’s a
miracle that organizations do this. Trying to capture that complexity of an organization is very
difficult.
Organizations are tools: they are purposive, goal-oriented instruments designed to achieve a specific
objective.
Tools are extensions of human agency.
Video of a nobel-prize winning economist: Milton Friedman. He starts with naming Adam Smith and
the free market. He shows a lead pencil. There’s not a person that can make the pencil themselves. He
mentions what the pencil is made of and the origin of the different elements. What brought them
together to make this pencil? It was the magic of the price system. It brought them together and got
them to cooperate. That is why the operation of the free market is so essential. To foster harmony and
peace among the people of the earth.
- Aspire to achieve the kind of clarity in the way he explains this story
Are we (=OT course), too, an organization? We officially registered. The lecturer is appointed
officially. VU is like an institution. An organizational member. Universities are organizations too. The
kind of questions we can ask about universities: Why are they created, where did they emerge, how
long ago, how did universities survive over the centuries, how flexible are they (do they evolve with
time; AI, they adapt to new environments)
Organizations are dynamic; some students are here for just a semester, but some for 3 years. Large
portion of its members change substantially each year ‘employee turnover’. How is the knowledge
preserved? We can ask these questions about any type of organization. Like the army or organized
crime: Vaccaro and Palazzo wrote: Values against Violence.
You can even ask if NikkieTutorials is an organization. She gained a lot of followers in the past few
years → Modest growth.
