MGMT606
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MGMT606 - Topics in Strategic Management and Organizational Theory II
Course ID
041155
Course Description
This course is a doctoral-level seminar on key issues and perspectives in behavioral strategy research and behavioral theories of organizations.
Models based on behavioral theories of organizations make more \"realistic assumptions\" about managerial decision making within organizations. Specifically, behavioral theories as applied in Strategic Management assume that humans are boundedly rational, even in cases when aided by computers. Currently, many cognitive psychologists adopt a computational model of the brain. This means that human brains (like computers) have limited time, memory, and processing capabilities. Both economic and behavioral theories have important applications in the study of strategy topics. In this course, we will emphasize behavioral approaches in our study of managerial and firm decision-making in strategic management and related areas.
This approach means we will lean some on cognitive psychology, social psychology, organizational behavior, cognitive science (including the interface with computer science), and brain science for assumptions and models relevant to managerial behavior to inform our own models, theory, and empirical examinations. One result is that we will encounter concepts, theories, and results that differ in substantial ways from more standard approaches in the strategic management field. In particular, we will deal more realistically with organizational systems and their environments. Individually and jointly these are substantially more complex and endogenous than is assumed in most of strategic management research. (This endogeneity raises some very difficult questions about empirical research that treat the environment as exogenous to the firm.) We will be particularly interested in how such organizations and their managers attempt to learn or adapt through feedback from experience both currently and in the past. Feedback learning is a dynamic and path dependent process for managers and firms. Much, but not all, empirical research in strategic management, deals with statics, as opposed to dynamics. Time series models are very rare in Strategic Management, although strategy is a process not a static state of the firm.
Because of these differences, additive models (such as linear statistical models) will be rather limited in helping us understand the phenomena and theories we will study. We will spend less time studying empirical papers and much more time examining theories of causal mechanisms and computational modeling (simulation) approaches than is usual in strategy Ph.D. seminars.
Models based on behavioral theories of organizations make more \"realistic assumptions\" about managerial decision making within organizations. Specifically, behavioral theories as applied in Strategic Management assume that humans are boundedly rational, even in cases when aided by computers. Currently, many cognitive psychologists adopt a computational model of the brain. This means that human brains (like computers) have limited time, memory, and processing capabilities. Both economic and behavioral theories have important applications in the study of strategy topics. In this course, we will emphasize behavioral approaches in our study of managerial and firm decision-making in strategic management and related areas.
This approach means we will lean some on cognitive psychology, social psychology, organizational behavior, cognitive science (including the interface with computer science), and brain science for assumptions and models relevant to managerial behavior to inform our own models, theory, and empirical examinations. One result is that we will encounter concepts, theories, and results that differ in substantial ways from more standard approaches in the strategic management field. In particular, we will deal more realistically with organizational systems and their environments. Individually and jointly these are substantially more complex and endogenous than is assumed in most of strategic management research. (This endogeneity raises some very difficult questions about empirical research that treat the environment as exogenous to the firm.) We will be particularly interested in how such organizations and their managers attempt to learn or adapt through feedback from experience both currently and in the past. Feedback learning is a dynamic and path dependent process for managers and firms. Much, but not all, empirical research in strategic management, deals with statics, as opposed to dynamics. Time series models are very rare in Strategic Management, although strategy is a process not a static state of the firm.
Because of these differences, additive models (such as linear statistical models) will be rather limited in helping us understand the phenomena and theories we will study. We will spend less time studying empirical papers and much more time examining theories of causal mechanisms and computational modeling (simulation) approaches than is usual in strategy Ph.D. seminars.
Min Units
2
Max Units
2
Repeatable for Credit
No
Grading Basis
GRD - Regular Grades A, B, C, D, E
Career
Graduate
Enrollment Requirements
018095
Course Requisites
May be convened with
Component
Seminar
Optional Component
No