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MANGT 531: ORGANIZATIONS (3 credits)
An examination of organizational issues: theories and behavior in project management.
Note: Students who have completed a master's degree (M.S., M.A., or M.B.A.) are not permitted to transfer credits from that degree into another master's degree at Penn State.
Overview
Organizations provide the context for operating projects. This course is about organizations: What are they? How do we describe them and understand their actions? What knowledge and skills does an individual need to act as a successful agent in one? What are the important issues involved in attempting to change or transform mature and stagnant organizations? Within the context of project management, MANGT 531 allows us to examine the structures and processes, including organizational culture, power, and politics, which can help or hinder the effective management of projects.
In addition to the goal of learning more about organization-wide concepts in this course, a second objective is for the student to be able to internalize, in a practical manner, the course material as it pertains to modern project management. What does it take to implement new strategies and projects in organizations? What are the possible ramifications across the organization resulting from such efforts? Therefore, the course has a pragmatic emphasis as well as focusing on the individual's ability to maximize his or her performance in a variety of administrative settings.
During your study, it is expected that you will draw on your own work or academic experiences to further enhance your understanding of the subject matter. Therefore, many of the course assignments may be completed by using real situations and instances from your career experiences. We ask only that you maintain the integrity of private information in these assignments by changing any names such that individuals are not able to be identified.
- The course has an established start and end date and you will interact with other students throughout the course.
- While course content is available in "Lessons" and articles in Library Reserve, you will need regular online access in order to interact with other students on the discussion forums.
- In addition, MANGT 531 is 16 weeks long, beginning and ending with the residential experiences if scheduled.
So how are we going to do this?
MANGT 531 consists of 12 "Lessons", or topics of study. These topics are available for download from this course Web site. There are also "Readings" on Penn State's Electronic Reserve system which you are expected to read along with Lessons.
Each week, a Lesson along with several readings are given. Students wil read, reflect on all of these articles, and post reflections by answering ALL questions on discussion forums.
You may access electronic reserves by clicking Resource on the menu, and under Penn State Library Tools choose Library Reserves. If you then click Preview Activated Link, you will access your course readings directly, which is listed under The CAT system of the library. Due to page length limit, "next" (at page bottom) allows you to go to next page for more readings.
A course schedule is posted later in this document to help keep you organized over the course of the semester. This Web site was designed to help facilitate your understanding of the content. It contains a link to discussion forums that you can use to ask questions or discuss content issues with your professor and fellow students, e-mail access, and other materials to aid you in your study. There will be an opportunity for some virtual classes that may be attended synchronously or viewed asynchronously. Additionally, you will be placed on a team that will prepare and present a reading, academic article, or application of a theory. This will be done using the virtual classroom tool.
A plenary session (in a two-day period), if scheduled, provides opportunities for questions.
What will be expected of you?
As a student in this course, you are expected to read the material in the workbook and textbook each week, and complete any self-assessments and your midterm assignment. In the beginning of each week, check announcement for expected activity of that week, and follow instructions. In general, you should:
- Consistently read and reflect on the material
- Particpiate in online discussions, and interact with students and the instructor in discussion forums, for any course materials, collaboration, or any thoughts/reflections - as they will be contributive to the class
- Complete assignments/ case study after reading, absorbing, and reflecting on materials
- Prepare and complete final exam
Interaction with the Instructor
In order to facilitate timely responses to any questions students may direct at the instructor, the following policies will be employed in this course:
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Instructor’s email is: myc10@psu.edu. The instructor will log on to the Angel site to answer questions or comments on around Monday, Wednesday, and Friday noon times. For questions posted passing noon Friday, it would be resopnded on Monday.
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While the instructor serves as a mediator and facilitator for this course, the instructor may ocasionally contribute comments or ask questions as a part of the students’ message strings. So, it is natural that you may wonder "Is the instructor there?", because the instructor does not intend to be a discussion arbiter stifling student participation and contribution. From this regard, any postings/ opinions from the instructor should not be construed as definitive.
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Student contribution to discussion forum will be evaluated based on the number of postings to the board, which will be calculated by Angel system for each topic/ week. Thus, please be sure to post your reflections only in the way directed. While quality is not evaluated among the postings, postings are expected to be reasonable to contribute to the value-adding process of learning. Thus, postings that simply repeat / repackage other’s opinions may not be counted, such as “I agree with Jane,” or “Joe’s points are good.”
Objectives
This course will introduce you to the major techniques for planning the project development process. By the end of this course, you should have a better understanding of
- The diversity of factors to be considered in both the determination of an overall organization structure for a given project
- The possibilities for varying organization structures with differing project environments
- The cultural and symbolic elements of organizations
- The power and political structures within organizations, and strategies for managing projects within these contexts.
Course Topics
- The role of organizations; provides an opportunity to develop an awareness of definitions of key terminology; develop an awareness of the planned nature of production, project life-cycle models, success criteria, and implications of all these for project management.
- Organization and systems thinking; provides an overview of the two main perspectives on systems (ICE v. PAC) thinking and the key terms involved; considers the various systems environments and their boundaries, and introduces the concept of post-contingency organization.
- Decision-making; Role and responsibilities in groups; develops an awareness of roles and responsibilities within project management work-groups.
- Differentiation: Time, technology, territory, and knowledge
- Organization and People; introduces concepts of commitment and acceptance; awareness of project-client interface; considers the issue of conflict; critical evaluation of matrix structures; considers the post-contingency approach to managing potential conflict.
- Basic organization structures; introduces three basic organization structures and a number of specialist variations; the concept of the integrated project team in terms of basic organization structures, and considers the concept of virtual teams and issues of authority
- Environments and Organization Dynamics; extends the concept of projects as dynamic entities; considers management suggestion by organization of resources and how the resources may affect organization culture; examines the concept of multi-cultural organizations; contrarian leadership
- Case: knowledge mapping and virtual teams
- Power roles, bases, and use; influence tactics
- Use of politics, and different perspectives of politics
- Culture; impact on projects; and multiculturalism
- Forms: transactional, transformational, and transformed
Course Requirements and Grading
The following are the major assignments for this course:
| Assignment | Value |
| Case Study/Paper Study Assignments | 260 |
| Discussion Board Participation | 440 |
| Final Exam | 300 |
| Total points | 1000 |
For additional information please refer to the Deferring a Grade page.