URL study guide

https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2024-2025/S_COC

Course Objective

General aim of the course: The course debates the nature of organizational change and focuses on interventions in organizational cultures. What is organizational culture, and can it be deliberately changed? Frequently, the focus of cultural change programs is on top-down, planned change, where employees are often regarded as passive receivers of a change plan rather than as active agents who make sense of and shape the change too. In this course, students are taught to look critically and culturally at top-down, managerialist approach and emphasize abottom-up, processual approach that is multi-level (micro, meso, macro) and multi-actor (top management, middle management, employees), and focuses on the daily sense-making and practices at the work floor. Besides gaining knowledge regarding concepts and theories about the subject matter, students are urged to continuously ask questions, to engage in critical debates and to apply their knowledge in the real world with societally relevant case studies. Main learning goals: 1. Acquire basic knowledge and understand concepts and theories on organizational culture, organizational change, and intervention. 2. Develop a processual approach to change that is bottom-up and emergent as an alternative to a top-down, managerial and planned approach. 3. Apply theoretical perspectives, concepts, and approaches to address practical cases of cultural change work in organisational settings.

Course Content

How to approach organizational change? This course is about reviewing and debating different approaches to the organization and management of change as a crucial theme. Mainly we will be challenging a more top-down, managerialist, or planned approach to change implemented in a number of steps with a clear end-goal. While such change plans sound good in theory, we know that in practice the reality is more difficult and complex. That is why we will look at change from a more critical, cultural, and processual perspective, that sees change as an unpredictable, emergent process, happening at the work floor in the daily sense-making and micro-practices of people at all levels of the organization. Change is not only a management concern; it concerns all the levels and members of the organization. Here we will also look at social and cultural issues like power and resistance, as well as cultural aspects like narratives, rituals, and spaces of change. Looking at organizing change within and beyond organizational boundaries While we do focus on change within an organization (i.e. organizational change), we will also be looking at change beyond organizational boundaries by addressing wider processes of change, such as sustainability transition. These inter-organizational or society-level change processes require collaboration, co-creation, and innovation between organizations and other stakeholders. Considering today’s urgency for change in these times of ecological and social crises, change increasingly needs to be addressed as a collaborative effort. Organizations need to step out of their siloes and transcend their boundaries to tackle wicked problems together in the form projects or alliances. This is not easy to do, due to cultural differences and power relations for example. But there are ways in which we can intervene such as by providing co-creative spaces for organizational actors to find a common ground and purpose and innovate, as we will explore in the course. Applying theory to practice of change work We will focus on real-life cases to connect the theory and practice of change work and to prepare those of you who will go on to work for organizations after your studies. Besides looking at real life cases during the lectures by sharing research examples, we will also be going into the field and doing an assignment for a change consultancy organization. In this way, we will apply what we learn to practice, so that we can help people and organizations to change. Main themes of the course:
• Top-down, planned approach to change
• Bottom-up, processual approach to change
• Practice-based change
• Discursive change
• Multi-level and multi-actor change
• Reflective interventions and inter-organizational change
• Transformational spaces and spatial interventions

Teaching Methods

Attendance and participation: This course is based on two live, on-campus lectures per week enriched with in-class discussions and a group assignment to create an interactive environment. To enable active learning and facilitate engagement with the course material, all students are expected to read the academic book and papers, attend the lectures, and actively participate and ask questions during sessions. During the sessions, important issues and topics are discussed with students, while the lecturer will distinguish what is important to learn for the course assignment and the exam. Embracing diversity: The mixed composition of SBI (Science, Business & Innovation), COM (Culture, Organizational & Management) and Anthropology students attending this course contributes to the interdisciplinary, international, and multicultural nature and content of this course. For example, students from different disciplines and backgrounds will be arranged, via Canvas, in groups of five students to work together on an assignment. In this sense, the diversity of the students will be embraced and integrated into the overall orientation and content of the course to facilitate exchange and learning activities.

Method of Assessment

Overall assessment: The course will be assessed through a group assignment proposal (pass/fail), a group assignment (30%) and an individual exam (70%). Students will be given one opportunity to retake the assignment and exam in case of a failed grade or 'no show'. The final grade will be calculated from both sub-grades, but both sub-grades must be a minimum of 5.5 to pass. Grades will be only rounded off in the final calculation. This academic year, the assignment grade of the previous year can be taken into this course if a student must retake her/his exam this year but did pass the assignment last year (note: next year this might not be the case). Assignment: The assignment involves collaborating in groups of five where students will devise and apply an organizational change approach to a real-life case provided by a change consultancy organization. The goal of this assignment is to stimulate the application of theoretical perspectives and concepts to the practical field of organizations that are undergoing a change process. The criterial of assessment will be provided in the course. Exam: The exam consists of 10 open essay questions conducted digitally on campus via the program TestVision to assess students' knowledge and understanding of the course literature, lectures and discussions. Clear instructions for the exam in terms of format, expectations, criteria, and standards will be given by the lecturer in advance as well as in the exam document. Moreover, a Q&A practice exam will be held together with students in the last session of the course program before the actual exam to help students prepare.

Literature

Alvesson, M. and S. Sveningsson (2016). Changing Organizational Culture. Cultural change work in progress, Routledge, London. Furthermore: 12 e-journal articles

Target Audience


- SBI students
- COM Students
- Anthropology students

Recommended background knowledge

Students are expected have prior knowledge on organizational culture: E.g. Alvesson, M. 2002 Understanding Organisational Culture. London: Sage or Martin, J. 2002 Organization Culture, Mapping the terrain. London: Sage

Explanation Canvas

Canvas will be used for weekly Q&A discussion boards and organising peer-reviewed feedback on papers.
Academic year1/09/2431/08/25
Course level6.00 EC

Language of Tuition

  • English

Study type

  • Master