Best Free MOOCs In Business For April

Critical Perspectives on Management

School: IE Business School

Platform: Coursera

Registration Link: REGISTER HERE

Start Date: April 3, 2017 (6 Weeks Long)

Workload: 1-3 Hours Per Week

Instructor: Rolf Strom-Olsen

Credentials: Strom-Olsen is the director of studies at IE’s school of arts and humanities. A Ph.D. in history from Northwestern University, he also teaches in IE’s international relations and business schools. In fact, this course – which challenges students to question traditional management frameworks and organizational structures – is among the most popular courses at the IE Business School. In his spare time, Strom-Olsen is a musician who holds a master’s degree in advanced composition.

Graded: Students will earn a verified certificate for completing this course.

Description: Should incentives maximize short-term output or reinforce long-term goals? Why does culture unify teams in some cases and blind employees to opportunities and misconduct in others? Such questions have confounded management thinkers for decades. In this course, Strom-Olsen challenges students to continuously ask questions, all the way down to “what is an organization?” and “what is leadership?” Drawing on disciplines that include history, economics, psychology and theology, this course fosters discussions how managers should view their role, establish priorities, make and execute decisions, and measure success. Driven by case studies that range from the rise of Roman commerce to the fall of Nokia, Strom-Olsen confronts the aspirations, practices, pressures, structures, and fallacies that drive growth or stymie innovation.  Student will learn through video lectures, online exercises, and PowerPoints, with content reinforced through homework assignments.

Review: “This course is very useful for anyone in management profession. The traditional concepts which are usually taught in the MBA Classrooms are looked upon in this course through a prism of criticality and an attempt is made to find out how rational a decision can be evaluated in practicality. Topics such as share holder value, rise and fall of nokia, efficiencies in the roman markets even though there was no advanced technology to facilitate flow of information and dissection of housing bubble have been thought provoking and really a good learning experience.” For additional reviews, click here.

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