Learning objectives |
To achieve the grade 12, students should meet the
following learning objectives with no or only minor mistakes or
errors: At the exam the students must be able to:
- Discuss how identity provides a foundation for strategy and how
it influences opportunities for organizations to achieve
competitive advantage
- Discuss how strategic processes may influence the construction
of a new organizational identity and the organizational commitment
to identity
- Relate theories on strategy and identity to each other, and
apply them in order to analyze issues of relevance to strategy,
identity and organizational processes
- Explain theories of sensemaking and framing, and how they
relate to each other
- Critically reflect on implications of the theories of
organizing processes for strategy and identity
- Account for how theories in both course can be used to
understand the dynamics of organizational change and continuity and
implications for managing and working in organizations
- Explain how analytical and philosophical foundations connect to
theories and methodologies for studying
phenomena.
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Course prerequisites |
Organizing Processes must be taken together with
the course Strategy and Identity as they have a common
exam |
Examination |
Strategy and
Identity in Conjunction with Organizing
Processes:
|
Exam
ECTS |
15 |
Examination form |
Oral exam based on written product
In order to participate in the oral exam, the written product
must be handed in before the oral exam; by the set deadline. The
grade is based on an overall assessment of the written product and
the individual oral performance. |
Individual or group exam |
Individual oral exam based on written group
product |
Number of people in the group |
4-5 |
Size of written product |
Max. 15 pages |
Assignment type |
Project |
Duration |
Written product to be submitted on specified date and
time.
20 min. per student, including examiners' discussion of grade,
and informing plus explaining the grade |
Preparation time |
No preparation |
Grading scale |
7-step scale |
Examiner(s) |
Internal examiner and external examiner |
Exam period |
Autumn |
Make-up exam/re-exam |
Same examination form as the ordinary exam
If a student does not pass the
regular exam, the examiner of the ordinary exam decides whether a
new, revised or the same project must be handed in by the
submission date for the re-exam.
If a student is absent from the oral exam due to documented illness
but has handed in the written group product she/he does not have to
submit a new product for the re-take. However the group product
must be uploaded once again on Digital Exam.
If a whole group fails the oral exam, they must hand in a revised
product for the re-exam.
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Description of the exam
procedure
The exam format is an individual oral examination based on the
written project report. In the oral exam, the written report is
used as basis for the discussion. The examination will cover both
the report itself and the theory applied. The final grade for the
course is based on a combined evaluation of the written project and
the oral performance. Please use the formal requirements for
written assignments, which can be found on my.cbs.dk. Each
student receives an individual
grade.
|
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Course content and structure |
The course views organizing as the process of applying various
means to create commitment among actors towards organizational
aims. Commitment evolves through what is called sensemaking
processes, which connect actions and interpretations around the
narrative of organizing process. Management of organizing process
takes place as attempts by management to “frame” the sensemaking
processes that take place among organizational members. Framing
attempts may have expected as well as unexpected consequences, and
the course discusses the consequences of both of these. In order to
influence sensemaking management typically resorts to three
different types of framing, referred to as materiality (including
technologies and artefacts), leadership behaviour (including how
managers act to foster commitment) and stories (including the
stories and explanations that aim to foster commitment).
The course explains how each of these framing types impacts
differently on sensemaking processes in the organization, how some
may sometimes lead to “overflows”, which are effects that were not
intended and which may lead to new framing attempts.
The main goal of the course is to provide students with
knowledge of the theories behind organizing processes and to use
those theories to understand the actual challenges of organizing in
organizations. Selected theories and examples are specifically
chosen to address current developments in business and industry,
such as the sharing economy and the emergence of disruptive
technologies. The course also addresses philosophical and
analytical bases of the theories and links them to methods of
studying organizational phenomena.
Overlap with Strategy and Identity
This course overlaps with Strategy and Identity (SI) in several
ways. Both courses focus on theories and conceptual
frameworks that elaborate the processes underpinning strategy,
identity and organizing hereby stressing the active role of
organizational actors. While SI focuses on how actors set the
direction for the trajectory of the organization, OP focuses on the
various mechanisms in maintaining and transforming organizations.
Taken together the two courses will explain how strategies and
identities are open to change and how sensemaking processes serve
to hold them together. Finally, both courses will draw upon
abductive methods as the foundation for the joint shared student
projects.
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Teaching methods |
Dialogue-based lectures and case discussions. A
workshop will be held with Strategy and Identity. |
Feedback during the teaching period |
Feed-back will be given to the group
presentations in the class and during office hours |
Student workload |
Teaching |
33 hours |
Preparation/reading/group work |
123 hours |
Exam |
50 hours |
|
Expected literature |
Callon, M., (1998), 'An essay on framing and
overflowing: economic externalities revisited by sociology', in
Callon, M., (Ed.), The Laws of the
Markets, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 244-269.
Chia, Robert (1999) A ‘Rhizomic’ model of organizational change and
transformation: Perspective from a metaphysics of change.
British Journal of Management 10:209-227.
Hernes, Tor, Edda Hendrup and Birgitte Schäffner (2015) Sensing
the momentum. A process view of change in a multinational
corporation. Journal of Change Management
15(2):117-141.
Nicolini, Davide, Jeanne Mengis and Jacky Swan (2012)
Understanding
the Role of Objects in Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration.
Organization Science 23(3):612-629.
Isaacson, Walter (2013) Steve Jobs: The exclusive
biography. Simon & Schuster
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