https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2025-2026/E_BA_TLBThought Leadership in Business explores the power of ideas to shape how organizations think, act, and evolve. Rather than focusing on traditional leadership styles or managerial control, this course centers on how influential ideas—such as Lean, Agile, CSR, or Design Thinking—are created, spread, and adopted within the business world. The goal of this course is to equip you with the conceptual tools, research skills, and critical awareness needed to understand, analyze, and reflect on the life cycle of these ideas—how they originate, gain legitimacy, evolve, and are implemented (or resisted) in organizational contexts. You will engage with both academic theory and real-world practice to explore how such ideas become popular, how they are shaped by various actors and interests, and how they impact organizational life. Drawing from fields such as organizational theory, sociology of knowledge, and management consultancy, the course offers a deep and critical understanding of how ideas gain traction—and how they can be used to influence change. The course follows the full trajectory of management ideas: their production, evolution, adoption, and implementation. s After successfully completing this course, students will be able to: Academic and Research SkillsAnalyze how influential management ideas emerge and spread in business communities.Conduct empirical research combining textual analysis, media data, and interviews.Evaluate the impact of these ideas on organizations and management practices.Knowledge of Theory + Methods and Solving Complex ProblemsApply academic frameworks to assess the effectiveness and limitations of management ideas.Connect theory to practice by tracing how concepts evolve and adapt over time.Identify tensions between innovation and institutionalization in management thinking.Professional Social SkillsCommunicate findings clearly and persuasively in various academic and professional formats.Collaborate effectively in research teams and participate in critical peer discussion.Engage in constructive feedback and dialogue during tutorial sessions.Horizon Beyond the Professional AreaExplore how management ideas reflect broader societal, ethical, and political dynamics.Recognize disciplinary crossovers and professional variation in how such ideas are understood and used.Self-Reflective ProfessionalReflect on your role as a consumer, translator, and potential promoter of management ideas.Assess how your own values and assumptions influence your interest in certain ideas.Develop a critical and personal stance toward business trends and their organizational implications.This course investigates how influential management ideas shape the way organizations operate and how professionals think and act. You will explore how these ideas originate, how they spread across industries and disciplines, and how they are interpreted, contested, or translated in practice. Throughout the course, you will select a management concept of personal or professional interest and trace its life cycle through literature, media, and interviews. Themes include the rhetorical appeal of ideas, their diffusion in print and digital media, their adaptation by organizations, and the role of actors such as consultants, gurus, and managers in shaping their uptake. Tutorials and assignments guide you through this research process, while offering structured moments of reflection and feedback. The course combines rigorous academic inquiry with collaborative learning, helping you develop both a sharper analytical eye and a more reflective professional identity in relation to the management ideas that shape our work and institutions. This is an elective that is of interest for students of all five specialization programmes (IM, LCM, MC, SHRM, and S&O).Lectures, seminarsAssignments