TOPICS AND REQUIRED READINGS

There is no textbook. Readings in maroon with underlining are posted on the course's web site: http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~wstarbuc/mob/contents.html. A few articles are pdf files. To read them, you need either Acrobat Reader or version 4.0 of Netscape. Acrobat Reader is free, and you can download it from Adobe's web site.

Session 1A. February 10 – Introduction to OB "The world was created on 22nd October, 4004 B.C. at 6 o'clock in the evening." --James Ussher,1650
Explanation:	Introduction to the course

Session 1B. February 10 – Teamwork
Team exercise:	The Sandhogs
Reading:	”Managing the life cycle of virtual teams” by Stacie A. Furst, Martha Reeves, Benson Rosen, and Richard S. Blackburn ”Some ideas are so bad that only team efforts can account for them” by Jared Sandberg

Session 1C. February 10 – "Client-facing" and work-life quality
Reading:
Visitor:	Lillian Borsa, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Session 2. February 17 – Teamwork "Work teams and group leaders are a way of setting worker against worker." -- Eddie Chapman, union shop steward, Ford Motor Company
Lecture:	Introduction to Orpheus Orpheus slide show
Readings:	"Passing the baton" by James Traub "Overture: The Rules Have Changed (Again) " by Harvey Seifter and Peter Economy Orpheus’ web site ”The Plight of the White-Tie Worker” by Blair Tindall
Videos:	"Orpheus in the Real World" and “Bolero”
Visitor: :	Ronnie Bauch, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra

Make an appointment to meet with Professor Starbuck concerning your team’s case. (We will meet in my office, Tisch 7-22.)

Session 3A. February 24 - Decision making, problem solving, and learning from experience
Lecture:	Decision Making Decision making slide show
Readings:	"Decision failures: Why they occur and how to prevent them" by Glen Whyte

Session 3B. February 24 – The Challenger disaster "The only accident is that this thing leaked out. You could have avoided this whole thing by not saying anything." -- Craig Faust, control-room operator, Three Mile Island, 1979
Readings:	"Challenger: Fine-tuning the odds until something breaks" W. H. Starbuck and F. Milliken ”Cultural divide plagues NASA: Gap persists between engineers, managers” by Shankar Vedantam
Case Discussion:	Challenger
Video:	Challenger

Session 4A. March 3 – Organizational and national cultures "We will lift Shanghai up and up, ever up, until it is just like Kansas City." -- US Senator Kenneth Wherry, 1940.
Lecture:	Culture Culture slide show
Readings:	“Chinese Orchestra Is Seeking Harmony Under a New Baton” by Leslie Chang ”The smile factory: Work at Disneyland” by John Van Maanen "Cultural constraints on management theories" by Geert Hofstede

Session 4B. March 3 – Organizational culture in the New York City Fire Department
Visitor:	Dan Nigro, former chief of the NYC Fire Department ”Lessons from September 11” by Wally Bock ”Now they're cookin': Firefighters face off in Tabasco recipe contest” by Lisa Deaderick

Session 5A. March 10 – Compensation Noah paid his shipbuilder by giving him his house. -- Ancient Sumerian legend
Case Discussion	Omega Consulting

Session 5B. March 10 – Rewards and punishments
Lecture:	Rewards and Punishments Rewards and Punishments slide show
Readings:	"On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B" by Steven Kerr "Reinforce for performance: The need to go beyond pay and even rewards" by Fred Luthans and Alexander D. Stajkovic

Session 5C. March 10 – Obedience "When the President does it, that means it is not illegal." -- Richard Nixon
Video:	Obedience

March 24 – First reports are due from all teams. (Grading template)

Session 6A. March 24 – On being a manager "We're all in this alone." -- Lily Tomlin
Reading:	Bob Knowlton at Simmons Securities
Case Discussion:	Bob Knowlton

Session 6B. March 24 – Leadership and substitutes for it
"We plan absentee ownership. I'll stick to building ships." -- George Steinbrenner, after buying the New York Yankees, 1973

Lecture:

Leadership
Leadership slide show
Printable slide show

Readings:

"Successful vs. effective real managers" by Fred Luthans
”The future of leadership: Combining vertical and shared leadership to transform knowledge work” by Craig L. Pearce

Session 6C. March 24 – Midterm Exam

Session 7A. March 31 – Organization design
Lecture:	Organization Design Organization Design slide show Printable slide show
Readings:	"Building better bureaucracies” by Paul S. Adler ”Must accidents happen? Lessons from high-reliability organizations” by Karlene Roberts and Robert Bea

Session 7B. March 31 – The boundaryless organization
Reading:	”Creating the boundaryless organization: The radical reconstruction of organizational capabilitiies” by David Ulrich and Steven Kerr
Visitor:	Steve Kerr, Goldman Sachs

Session 8A. April 7- Strategizing "I think there is a world market for about five computers." -- Thomas J. Watson, IBM's CEO, 1948
Lecture:	Strategizing Strategizing slide show Printable slide show
Readings:	"Strategizing in the real world" by William H. Starbuck "Are you sure you have a strategy?" by Donald C. Hambrick and James W. Fredrickson ”Jacuzzi U.? A Battle of Perks to Lure Students” by Greg Winter Porter’s Five Forces

Session 8B. April 7 – Strategy on Broadway
Visitor:	Aldo Scrofani

Session 9A. April 14 – Communication Violence breeds violence, and it is predicted that by 1990 kidnapping will be the dominant mode of social interaction." -- Woody Allen, 1982
Lecture:	Communication Communication slide show
Readings:	"Inspiring others: The language of leadership" by Jay A. Conger "Managing five paradoxes of 360-degree feedback" by Jai Ghorpade
Other:	Discuss presentation feedback forms (Handout) "A guide to effective oral presentations: 3 S's and a challenge"

Session 9B. April 14 – Presentations by teams 4, 6, and 7.

Session 9C. April 14 – Optional supplementary exam for students who had scores below the class average on the midterm exam.

April 21 – Second reports are due from teams 4, 6, and 7. (Grading template)

Session 10A. April 21 – Extreme Excellence, Part 1
Reading:		"Putting people first for organizational success" by Jeffrey Pfeffer and John F. Veiga
Visitor:			Susan Salgado
Session 10B. April 21 – Presentations by teams 1 and 5. Session 10C. April 21 – Persuasion
Lecture:	Persuasion Persuasion slide show

April 28 – Second reports are due from teams 1 and 5. (Grading template)

Session 11A. April 28 – Presentation by teams 2 and 3. Session 11B. April 28– The 21^st Century
Readings:	“Four Great Conflicts of the Twenty-First Century” by William H. Starbuck
Video:	“The Corporation”
Discussion	Corporations and challenges of the 21^st century

May 5 – Second report is due from teams 2 and 3. (Grading template)

Session 12A. May 5 – Extreme Excellence, Part 2 ”What the hell is it good for?” – Robert Lloyd, IBM engineer, reacting disdainfully to a prediction that microprocessors would be the wave of the future, 1968
Readings:	Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz (case) Addendum to the Wachtell case Wachtell’s web site
Case Discussion:	Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz
Session 12B. May 5 - Final Exam

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