Work and Organization Studies

Surveys individual and social psychology and organization theory interpreted in the context of the managerial environment. Laboratory involves projects of an applied nature in behavioral science. Emphasizes use of behavioral science research methods to test hypotheses concerning decision-making, group behavior, and organizational behavior. Instruction and practice in communication includes report writing, team projects, and oral and visual presentation. 12 units may be applied to the General Institute Laboratory Requirement. Shares lectures with 15.310.  

Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

• Ray Reagans

The study of power among individuals and within organizations, markets, and states. Using examples from anthropology and sociology alongside classical and contemporary social theory, explores the nature of dominant and subordinate relationships, types of legitimate authority, and practices of resistance. Examines how people are influenced in subtle ways by those around them, who makes controlling decisions in the family, how people get ahead at work, and whether democracies, in fact, reflect the will of the people. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

• Susan Silbey

   

Surveys social psychology and organization theory as interpreted in the context of the managerial environment. Covers a number of diverse topics, including motivation and reward systems, social influence, groups and teams, leadership, power, organizational design and culture, and networks and communication patterns. Similar in content to 15.311; shares lectures with 15.301. Preference to non-Course 15 students.

Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

• Ray Reagans

Enhances students' ability to take effective action in complex organizational settings by providing the analytic tools needed to analyze, manage, and lead the organizations of the future. Emphasizes the importance of the organizational context in influencing which individual styles and skills are effective. Employs a wide variety of learning tools, from experiential learning to the more conventional discussion of written cases. Centers on three complementary perspectives on organizations: the strategic design, political, and cultural "lenses" on organizations. Major team project to analyze an actual organizational change, with oral and written reports. Restricted to first-year Sloan master's students. 

Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

• Katherine Kellogg
• Chelsea Lide
• Dana White
• Nathan Wilmers

Develops appreciation for organizational dynamics and competence in navigating social networks, working in a team, demystifying rewards and incentives, leveraging the crowd, understanding change initiatives, and making sound decisions. Provides instruction and practice in written and oral communication through presentations, and interpersonal and group exercises.

Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

• Ray Reagans

Provides the tools to better understand an individual's unique way of leading, i.e., one's leadership signature. Involves intensive self-assessment and interactive exercises aimed to identify the leadership patterns that help and hinder one's ability to make change happen. Focuses on identifying core leadership strengths and weaknesses, immunity to change, and developing one's leadership signature. Explores alternative leadership approaches in order to determine capabilities to emulate and plan changes in behavior moving forward. Readings from psychology, family systems, developmental psychology, and leadership literature augment analyses.

Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

• Kate Isaacs

Allows students to experience how senior executives really work with others - teams, boards, employees, customers and partners, regulators, and advisors - in order to be successful. Involves frank interactions with senior executives, working directly with student teams in class and over dinner. Culminates with students synthesizing lessons learned into a set of personal long-term commitments.

Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

• Vijay D'Silva

Covers classic and contemporary theories and research related to individuals, groups, and organizations. Designed primarily for doctoral students in the Sloan School of Management who wish to familiarize themselves with research by psychologists, sociologists, and management scholars in the area commonly known as micro organizational behavior. Topics may include motivation, decision making, negotiation, power, influence, group dynamics, and leadership.

Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

• Jared Curhan

Provides an introduction to research in "organizations and environments," an interdisciplinary domain of inquiry drawing primarily from sociology, and secondarily from economics, psychology, and political science. Seeks to understand organizational processes and outcomes in the surrounding economic, cultural, and institutional context in which they are situated. Also provides an introduction to the main groups that together form the Behavioral Policy Sciences (BPS) area of MIT/Sloan, including economic sociology, organization studies, work and employment, strategic management, global management, and technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Consists of four modules taught by faculty from each of the four BPS groups, as well as integrative sessions taught by the main instructor. Preference to first-year doctoral students in BPS.     

Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

• Susan Silbey

Introduces the process of social research, emphasizing the conceptualization of research choices to ensure validity, relevance, and discovery. Includes research design and techniques of data collection as well as issues in the understanding, analysis, and interpretation of data.

Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

• Susan Silbey

Builds on 15.347 to examine contemporary social research methods in depth. Focuses on making students familiar with the most important quantitative methods (e.g., logit/probit models, models for ordinal and nominal outcomes, count models, event history models).

Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

• Emilio Castilla

Designed to help students learn more about their strengths, and how they can utilize these strengths to manage their career. Draws on the latest research and practices, experiential exercises, and cases studies, and includes guest speakers. Covers the most important aspects of talent (and career) management.

Professor(s) who have recently taught this course:

• Emilio Castilla

Examines managing work in the 21st century in the interests of both people and profits through the context of rising inequality, technological change, globalization, and the growth of the gig economy. Students evaluate various business and policy interventions intended to improve work through critical analysis of the evidence, interviews with workers and evaluations of firms, and guest speakers. Guests include business leaders at leading-edge firms and labor leaders experimenting with new ways of providing workers a voice in the workplace. Draws on materials from the MIT Task Force on Work of the Future and the online course Shaping Work of the Future.

Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

• Anna Stansbury

Provides understanding of the theory and processes of negotiation as practiced in a variety of settings. Designed for relevance to the broad spectrum of bargaining problems faced by the manager and professional. Allows students an opportunity to develop negotiation skills experientially and to understand negotiation in useful analytical frameworks. Emphasizes simulations, exercises, role playing, and cases.

Professor(s) who recently taught this course:

• Jackson Lu
• Basima Tewfik

Focuses on the strategies used to successfully design and implement people analytics in one's organization. Draws on the latest company practices, research projects, and case studies - all with the goal of helping students deepen their understanding of how people analytics can be applied in the real world. Covers the most important aspects of human resource management and people analytics. Demonstrates how to apply those basic tools and principles when hiring, evaluating and rewarding performance, managing careers, and implementing organizational change.

Professor(s) that have recently taught this course:

• Emilio Castilla

Interactive reading and discussion subject focused on work and employment relations. Students draw upon and integrate research and theory from various disciplines, primarily the industrial relations tradition and the sociology of work. Addresses trends in employment relations, systems of power and control within workplaces, the replication or remediation of inequalities within organizations, and various proposed strategies for improving work. Focus is on the contemporary US, with a grounding in recent history and institutions.

Professor(s) who have recently taught this course:

• Erin Kelly

Research-based examination of how labor markets work — and how they have evolved over time — through trends such as rising income inequality, technological change, globalization, falling worker power, and the fissuring of the workplace. Through reading and engaging with economics research papers, students use theoretical frameworks and rigorous empirical evidence to analyze public policy interventions in the labor market, including unemployment insurance, minimum wage, unions, family leave, anti-discrimination policies, and workforce development. Preference to graduate and PhD students.

Professor(s) who have recently taught this course:

• Anna Stansbury

Designed to enhance students' ability to take effective action in complex organizational settings by providing the analytic tools needed to analyze, manage, and lead the organizations of the future. Emphasizes the importance of the organizational context in influencing which individual styles and skills are effective. Employs a wide variety of learning tools, from experiential learning to the more conventional discussion of written cases. Centers on three complementary perspectives on organizations: the strategic design, political, and cultural "lenses" on organizations. Restricted to Executive MBA students.  

Professor(s) that have recently taught this course:

• Roberto Fernandez