The schedule is flexible and subject to change. I will keep it updated as we go.
Week 1: Introduction (Jan 20 and 22)
Reading
Notes
- Both class sessions are on Zoom this week.
- Wed: Orientation
- Fri: Discussion. The division of labor and organizations; kinds of organizations; organization as contrasted with …
Week 2: Rationality, Bureaucracy, and the Corporation (Jan 27 and 29)
Reading
- Max Weber, “The Pure Types of Legitimate Authority.”
- Max Weber, “Bureaucracy.”
- ★ Charles Perrow, “Why bureaucracy?”
- “John D. Rockefeller and the creation of Standard Oil” (HBS Case 807110).
Notes
Week 3: Scientific management (Feb 3 and 5)
Reading
- Frederick W. Taylor, “Principles of scientific management.”
- Harry Braverman, “The degradation of work in the twentieth century.”
- ★ Treadway Tire Company: Job dissatisfaction and high turnover at the Lima plant (HBS Case 2189).
- ★ Michael Lewis, “The science of winning an unfair game”.
Notes
Reading
- George Homans, “The Hawthorne experiments.”
- Michael Burawoy, “The labor process as a game.”
- ★ Ross Bernstein, The code: the unwritten rules of fighting and retaliation in the NHL (excerpts).
Notes
Reading
- Gideon Kunda. Engineering culture: control & commitment in a high-tech corporation (excerpts).
- Calvin Morrill, "Conflict management, honor, and organizational change.
- Michael Cohen, James March, and Johan Olsen, “A garbage can model of organizational choice.”
- ★ The New York Times, “Scenes from a marriage.”
Notes
Week 6: Organizations and their environments (Feb 24 and 26)
Reading
- Alvin Gouldner, Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy (excerpts)
- Mayer Zald and Patricia Denton, “From evangelism to general service: the transformation of the YMCA”
- Joan Woodward, “Technology and organization”
- Glenn Carroll and Anand Swaminathan, “Why the microbrewery movement? Organizational dynamics of resource partitioning in the U.S. brewing industry.”
- ★ The New York Times, “Is it last call for craft beer?”
- ★ Washington Post, “Maryland’s small colleges saw the future, and it was bleak. Now, they’re selling liberal arts with a twist.”
Notes
- The midterm exam will be assigned this week and due the next.
Week 7: Organizational disasters (Mar 5 and 7)
Reading
- Charles Perrow, Normal accidents (excerpts).
- Diane Vaughan, The Challenger launch decision (excerpts).
- Kieran Healy, “Organizations and Obligations.”
- ★ New York Times, “The C.D.C. Waited ‘Its Entire Existence for This Moment.’ What Went Wrong?”
Notes
Week 8: The institutional environment (Mar 10 and 12)
Reading
- Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell, “The iron cage revisited.”
- Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev, “Why diversity programs fail.”
- ★ “Alliant Health System: A vision of total quality” (HBS Case 192003).
- ★ The Chronicle of Higher Education, “The Cautionary Tale of a Short-Lived College.”
Notes
Week 9: Shareholder value and the CEO (Mar 17 and 19)
Reading
- Neil Fligstein, The transformation of corporate control (excerpts).
- Rakesh Khurana, Searching for a corporate savior (excerpts).
- ★ “The Enron collapse” (HBS Case IMD164).
Notes
Week 10: Social movements, consumers, and corporations (Mar 24 and 26)
Reading
- Hayagreeva Rao, Market rebels (excerpts).
- Brayden King, “When markets become contentious”.
- Sarah Soule, Contention and corporate social responsibility (excerpts).
- ★ Hitting the wall: Nike and international labor practices” (HBS Case 700047).
Notes
Week 11: After the bureaucracy? (Mar 31 and Apr 02)
Reading
- Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society (excerpts).
- Yochai Benkler, The wealth of networks (excerpts).
- Catherine Turco, The conversational firm (excerpts).
- ★ “Eden McCallum: A network-based consulting firm” (HBS Case 410056).
Notes
Week 12: Organizations and categorical inequality (Apr 07 and 09)
Reading
- Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Men and women of the corporation (excerpts).
- ★ Lauren Rivera, Pedigree: how elite students get elite jobs (excerpts).
- Emilio Castilla, “Gender, race, and meritocracy in organizational careers”.
Notes
Week 13: Organizations and careers (Apr 14 and 16)
Reading
- Stephen Barley and Gideon Kunda, Gurus, hired guns, and warm bodies: itinerant experts in a knowledge economy (excerpts).
- ★ Sarah Brayne, Predict and surveil: data, discretion, and the future of policing (excerpts).
- ★ Ofer Sharone, Flawed system, flawed self (excerpts).
- Erin Kelly and Phyllis Moen, Overload (excerpts).
Notes
Week 14 Open/Catch-Up (Apr 21 and 23)
Notes
- Final paper due by 5pm on April 26th.