• Define the concept of a “project” and the theory of knowledge essentials for project management leadership.
• Specify the roles, task, and interests of project participants and stakeholders, and be able to assess aspects of team dynamics, power relations, and organizational strategy for project management.
• Define and compare the concepts of project risk, uncertainty, and complexity, and present the key conventional and alternative approaches to these terms in project management.
• Explain the financial and statistical essentials for project management as presented and developed throughout the course, cases, and discussions.
• Analyze and explain project management functions in contemporary complex organizations. Here, the focus should be on the variance of national or regional employment ecology models and the impact for project leadership and management outcomes.

This case-based discussion course, with supporting lectures, examines project management basics in the context of the knowledge necessary to design, manage, and evaluate project work in today’s globalized, complex organizations. Three course propositions help organize course goals and curriculum design:

1. National and regional historical differences in employment relations, examined in case studies, aid understanding of, and theorizing about, project management success or failure.

2. Authenticity in employment relations, at individual and institutional levels, is a necessary, possibly sufficient, predictor condition for success in project management leadership.  

3. The history and deployment of lean project principles has caused a functional breakdown in traditional distinctions between corporate strategy and project management. Understanding this development is essential for success in project management performance and evaluation.

Lecture and case analysis will provide key elements regarding leadership and management of projects. An epistemology of project leadership steadily develops throughout the course. Finally, case analyses ground the historical context for understanding how and why lean management has come to challenge traditional notions of corporate strategy.

The course, including the mini-project proposal, review, and Home Assignment, will help graduate students in project management leadership while refining their understanding of research methods, which will aid Master’s thesis preparations. 

Preliminary assignment: Complete a pre-course survey, read a few short pieces on epistemology and method, come to class ready to present and discuss personal insight experiences.

Class 1: Personal insight and Project leadership: the basics. 
- Term paper proposal and process described.

Class 2: Comparative ecologies of employment: regional and national variation.

Class 3: Project Management (PM)1: Managing Projects Large and Small

Class 4: PM 2: Managing Projects Large and Small

Class 5: Project Management 3:  To whom does this company belong? A case from Japan

Class 6: From Projects to Temporary Organizations

Feedback activity: Term paper proposal evaluations returned.

Class 7: Lean Management as Corporate Strategy - Toyota

Class 8: PM in Corporate Strategy: a case from the E.U

Class 9: PM and Corporate Strategy: Volkswagen in the U.S. 

Class 10: PM and Corporate Strategy: Lean management in India

Class 11: Review and Course Summation

Preliminary Assignment: To help students get maximum value from ISUP courses, instructors provide a reading or a small number of readings or video clips to be read or viewed before the start of classes with a related task scheduled for class 1 in order to 'jump-start' the learning process.

Course timetable is available on https://www.cbs.dk/uddannelse/international-summer-university-programme-isup/courses-and-exams

We reserve the right to cancel the course if we do not get enough applications. This will be communicated on https://www.cbs.dk/uddannelse/international-summer-university-programme-isup/courses-and-exams end February 2019 at the latest.

Mandatory readings:

A Harvard Business Publishing Coursepack, with this preliminary assignment reading for first class: Alan MacCormack, Richard Mason, “The Fate of the Vasa.” Harvard Business School Case Study #605026 (2005).

Readings for Preliminary Assignment: 

Lonergan, Bernard J.F. (1992). Chapter 1, Elements, pp. 3-6, Chapter 4, The Complementarity of Sessionical and Statistical Investigations, pp. 126 – 139, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding. Volume 3 in the Collected Works. Toronto: Toronto University Press.

Lonergan, Bernard J.F. 1967. ‘Cognitional Structure’, in F.E. Crowe & R.M. Doran (eds), pp. 205–221, Collection, 2nd ed. Volume 4 in the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Additional relevant readings:

Vendantan, Shankar; Stein, Rob (April 25, 2003). Death rate for Global Outbreak Rising. Washington Post, pg. A01.

Tackney, C. T. (2008). Where would you like to work, and why? A Legal Ecology Instructional Model for the Comparative Study of the Modern Enterprise. Paper presented to the Management Education Division, the Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2008, Anaheim.

Brière, S., Proulx, D., Flores, O.N., and Laporte, M. (2015). Competencies of project managers in international NGOs: Perceptions of practitioners. International Journal of Project Management. 33: 116 – 125. 

Anantatmula, V., Thomas, M. (April 2010). Managing global projects: A structured approach for better performance. Project Management Journal. 60- 72.

Case: Tackney, Charles T. (2006). “To Whom Does This Company Belong?” An Instructional Case Unit Concerning Japanese Management and Comparative Corporate Governance in the 1988 Labor Union.

Case: Tackney, Charles T. (2006). “To Whom Does This Company Belong?” An Instructional Case Unit Concerning Japanese Management and Comparative Corporate Governance in the 1988 Labor Union Coup at Okuma Corporation, a Japanese Machine Tool Manufacturer. 

Tackney, Charles T. (2001). The Modes of Social Relation in Japanese Management Practice. Chapter 16 in Cary L. Cooper, Sue Cartwright, and P. Christopher Earley (Eds.). The International Handbook of Organizational Culture and Climate (pp. 377- 390). London: John Wiley & Sons.

Packendorff, J. (1995). Inquiring into the temporary organization: New directions for project management research. Scandinavian Journal of Management. 11:4, 319-333.

Case: Brooks, C. (2016), Organizing Volkswagen: A Critical Assessment. WorkingUSA, 19: 395–417. doi:10.1111/wusa.12249 .

Juravich, T. (2016). A Year to Remember: Reviewing Labor Movement Highlights and Lowlights. New Labour Forum. 25: 2, 80-87.

Lewicki, R.; Elgoibar, P., and M. Euwema (2016). The Tree of Trust: building and repairing trust in organizations. Chapter 6 in Building Trust and Constructive Conflict Management in Organizations (Lewicki, R.; Elgoibar, P., and M. Euwema, Eds.). Pp. 93 - 117. London: Springer.

Distelhorst, G.; Hainmueller, J. and R.M. Locke (2016). Does Lean Improve Labor Standards? Management and Social Performance in the Nike Supply Chain. Management Science.