Strategic Innovation - Novel Forms of Organizing (“Strategy 2.01”)

Winter Term ONLY: 040034 Master Level

Overview:

Wikipedia has outcompeted the Encyclopedia Britannica. Companies such as the Valve or Zappos do away with their traditional structure and successfully compete in fierce markets. Over the past decade, novel forms of organizing (NFOs) have disrupted traditional businesses and continue to challenge managers’ views on the viability of their strategies and the ways of re-structuring their own companies to cater to the demands of the millennial workforce. This class – blending insights from a decade’s research program with rich case-based illustrations – helps you master the following questions: what are novel forms of organizing at all? Why and how do they matter to strategists? Which type of employee wants to work inside an NFO and why? When and why should managers want to design one? What works (well)? Is flatter always better? How should I customize a flat structure to suit my company? What does it take to work team-based? And what really stands behind agility, DAOs, Holacracy, Scrum, WOC?

Pre-requisites:

2016 curriculum: Successful completion of the Minor.

Format and teaching methods:

Lectures, cases (students shall count on spending up to 20€ on reading material), class discussions, in-class exercises

Language: The course is held in English

Assessment: 

Class participation: 30%

Individual written exam (take-home, 24hrs.): 40%

Group project: 30%

You need to achieve a total of at least 50% in order to pass the class.

Please note further that missing more than 20% of classes will result in failing the whole course.

Attendance:

Class attendance is mandatory (you need to attend the whole first day, if you need to miss part of one of the other sessions, you are allowed to miss up to 20%). As part of the course grade, your class participation will be assessed every session. Keep in mind that participation is more than just attendance. Points will be subtracted for systematic absences (NOTE that you will automatically fail the class if you miss more than 20% of classes), but in grading participation the quality of your comments will count.
Please note, for all students who want to attend the course it is absolutely essential that you attend the first session as failure to do so will result in your exclusion from the course. This is to ensure that students on the waiting list have the opportunity to move up!