Social Entrepreneurship Courses at the Kellogg School of Management

Social Entrepreneurship Courses at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management

Intercultural Management

INTL-456-0

In today’s diverse world, companies need to factor cultural and linguistic differences into their technology-based programs. The means to do so are not always readily available to executives responsible for managing projects, negotiating agreements and alliances, and obtaining critical technology intelligence need, and to consultants serving such executives. Incorporating cultural differences into technology is particularly challenging in the conditions of high uncertainty and complexity. This course examines the challenges of intercultural issues in management and technology and possible solutions.

Cross-Cultural Negotiations

INTL-474-0

This course focuses on negotiation in the global business setting. Students should take this course or MORS-470, but not both, because both courses cover the same basic concepts of negotiation. The course is different from MORS-470 in that it focuses on culture and negotiation strategy, culture and negotiators’ interests, and culture and negotiation ethics. We also cover factors such as dispute resolution venue, currency and having government on the other side of the table, topics that are not usually dealt with in the MORS-470 course. The course is structured around a series of simulation exercises and debriefings. There is an attendance policy. Prerequisite: MORS-430.

Leading and Organizing Media Companies

MEDM-926-0

This class is at the intersection of management topics and the media industry, with attention to the customer. Students will analyze a different media company (traditional and new) each week from seven different levels: leadership, integrated marketing communications, organizational culture, financials, strategy, international and technology. Each student will have an opportunity to lead a group in the class, and the role will be analyzed through a leadership development plan. This class counts as an elective toward a media management major or toward a management and organizations major.

Leadership in Organizations

MORS-430-0

This course provides students with the social science tools needed to solve organizational problems and influence the actions of individuals, groups and organizations. It prepares managers to understand how to best organize and motivate the human capital of the firm, manage social networks and alliances, and execute strategic change. This is accomplished through knowledge of competitive decision making, reward system design, team building, strategic negotiation, political dynamics, corporate culture and strategic organizational design.

Managing People for Competitive Advantage

MORS-441-0

People clearly are an organization’s most critical resource. Their knowledge and skills along with their commitment, creativity, and effort are the basis for competitive advantage. It is people that have creative ideas for new products or for process improvements, that devise marketing strategy or take technologies to the next level. This course focuses on the people side of business from a general management perspective. In taking this generalist approach, we integrate concepts from organizational behavior, human resource management, strategy, and organizational design. Course topics include creating motivation and commitment, managing performance (goals and rewards), managing collaboration, and the ‘people side’ of managing change.

Managing People for Competitive Advantage

MORS-441-B

People clearly are an organization’s most critical resource. Their knowledge and skills, along with their commitment, creativity and effort, are the basis for competitive advantage. It is people who have creative ideas for new products and process improvements, who devise marketing strategy or take technologies to the next level. This course focuses on the people side of business from a general management perspective. In taking this generalist approach, we integrate concepts from organizational behavior, human resource management, strategy, and organizational design. Course topics include creating motivation and commitment, managing performance (goals and rewards), managing collaboration, and the ‘people side’ of managing change.

Writing in Organizations

MORS-449-A

This course does not count toward the Management & Organizations major. This five-week mini-course is for students who want intensive writing experience and feedback to help them think strategically about communication. Weekly writing assignments are based on communication cases–scenarios in which managers must write memos and reports to implement policies, explain strategies, announce changes and analyze problems. The final grade is based on a writing portfolio of revised memos, written feedback to other students, a report and a self-assessment memo in which students compare their progress to their original goals. This course does not count toward the MORS major.

Writing in Organizations

MORS-449-B

This course does not count toward the Management & Organizations major. This five-week mini-course is for students who want intensive writing experience and feedback to help them think strategically about communication. Weekly writing assignments are based on communication cases–scenarios in which managers must write memos and reports to implement policies, explain strategies, announce changes and analyze problems. The final grade is based on a writing portfolio of revised memos, written feedback to other students, a report and a self-assessment memo in which students compare their progress to their original goals. This course does not count toward the MORS major.

Management Communications

MORS-450-0

This course does not count toward the Management & Organizations major. This course aims to advance students’ skills in handling the basic communication and rhetorical problems of trying to influence the behavior of others. Students apply current knowledge and norms of persuasion, argumentation and group dynamics to exercises in oral presentations. This course does not count toward the MORS major. Prerequisite: MORS-430.

Designing Organizational Systems

MORS-451-0

This is an advanced course drawing on research in the behavioral sciences to formulate the design of the structure and procedures used by complex organizations to meet environmental demands and members’ needs. Specific focus is on the behavioral aspects of such topics as information systems, control systems, project management and matrix organization.

Leading the Strategic Change Process

MORS-452-0

This course focuses on key tasks in leading the strategic change process in organizations. These leadership tasks include creating a shared urgent need for change, creating a shared understanding of the reality of change issues, creating a change vision, promoting the belief that change is possible and leading the change transition process. Topics include creating and changing corporate culture, managing growth and decline, corporate restructuring, creating innovation and entrepreneurship, and leading the transition from an entrepreneurial start-up organization to an organization that can manage scale and scope and sustain competitive advantage. As part of this course, some faculty include a required all-day simulation project, often held on a Saturday; please see the syllabus or contact the professor for the course section. For more information on MORS-452, including a course overview and an example syllabus, please visit http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/stern_i/MORS452/.

Power In Organizations: Sources, Strategies and Skills

MORS-453-0

Power dynamics are fundamental to the effective exercise of leadership in organizations. This course develops your ability to create and use sources of power beyond formal authority, to formulate strategies and tactics of political and social influence, and to exercise skills that make you a more effective organizational leader. Readings, case materials, course assignments and a field action project focus on the challenge of sustainable political advantage in organizations – the rules of the game, basic power diagnostics, the management of strategic dependencies and persuasion processes, and working in entrepreneurial contexts. Throughout, the course raises issues of career dynamics in the context of the development of your leadership abilities. Prerequisite: MORS-430.

Creating and Managing Strategic Alliances

MORS-454-A

Amid global competition, increased technological change and intense resource constraints, more firms are working cooperatively with other organizations their strategic objectives. But such alliances are often difficult to achieve. This course examines the theory and practice of creating and managing different types of strategic alliances such as joint ventures, licensing agreements, buyer-supplier partnerships and consortia. It will help students understand the costs and benefits of strategic alliances (and why such alliances may be preferred over other strategies such as internal development or mergers and acquisitions). In addition, the course covers how to design alliances, and how to avoid the many potential problems and complications in managing these relationships. It also provides a framework for managing multiple alliances at once. Prerequisite: MORS-430.

Strategy Implementation

MORS-455-0

This course examines the behavioral aspects of implementing a firm’s strategies. It addresses issues related to the environment and the content of a firm’s strategies as they interact with specific implementation tools and approaches. Particular attention is given to issues of strategic change, strategic control and the relationship between implementation and performance.

Gender in Management

MORS-457-0

This course analyzes the way in which gender operates in organizations. It focuses on the different experiences of men and women in similar work environments, mentoring, advancement and how gender expectations influence styles of management. Students are asked to create agendas to improve gender relations in organizations by examining the issues of work and family cross-pressure, tokenism, sexual harassment and sex discrimination. The course also addresses legal and political changes that shape organizational decisions regarding male and female employees, as well as the costs and benefits of seeking legal recourse for the individual and the organization.

Managing With Professionals

MORS-458-0

This course discusses the special problems of managing the increasing number of managers, specialists and other professionals found in modern organizations. These include R&D personnel, engineers, operations researchers, MIS specialists, economists, doctors, nurses and teachers. Consideration is given to requirements for organizational structures, control and motivation systems.

Managing Technology Development and Deployment: Converging Technologies

MORS 459-B

Much attention is being paid to the game-changing potential of emerging advanced technologies such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science. However, it is evident that the greatest value and disruption will come from the convergence of these technologies – with each other resulting in opportunities and threats coming from surprising and cross-disciplinary sources, and with legacy technologies, infrastructure, systems and organizational frameworks. In many manufacturing industries, significant physical legacies in the form of equipment, factories and use infrastructure will lose much of their value. Cultural legacies such as silo-based corporate structures, professional, departmental, administrative level and discipline boundaries, long-standing policies, procedures, communications channels, current dogmas, competencies and long-held assumptions may hinder the ability of companies to capitalize on the converging technologies. Current standards and IP practices will be challenged. Major changes will be needed in design, production, distribution, supply chains and management processes in turn requiring new inter- and intra-organizational structures, and new strategic orientation and approaches . How will companies make money in this arena and how ill they avoid Internet-type fiascos? Building on a recent high level NSF industry workshop, this 5-week course will review the issues and trends and introduce new planning and analytic tools that can support competitiveness in this rapidly changing and uncertain marketplace. Students will hear from, and interact with, senior managers at the forefront of this new revolution. The course complements and builds on IE497: Nanotechnology: Scientific and Business Opportunities (MMM) adding a broader contextual and strategic perspective and students are encouraged, but not required to take that course in the first 5 weeks of the quarter. MORS-459 may be used as credit for Management.

Leading and Managing Teams

MORS-460-0

This is a course about teams: How to lead a team, encourage creativity, ensure coordination, deal with difficult team members, improve teams’ decision making and performance, get the most out of a team, and manage the boundaries between the team and other parts of the organization from which the team draws resources and authority. Students are assigned to a team at the beginning of the quarter. Teams analyze cases of outstanding and poor teamwork, then complete a group project and analyze their own teamwork and outcomes. Prerequisite: MORS-430.

Leading and Managing Diverse Organizations

MORS-462-0

Is diversity good for business? If so, how can leaders effectively reap its benefits? This course will examine the business case for encouraging diversity within organizations and discuss how to manage diverse employees in a global business. We will show how having a diverse workforce can enhance marketing, foster innovation and attract the most talented employees. Managing diversity requires specific skills and cultural competencies. Thus, we will also focus on developing the tools leaders need to realize the competitive advantages of diversity while avoiding common pitfalls, including intergroup conflict, that a poorly managed diverse staff can create. This course is for any leader who wants to succeed in the rapidly changing global economy. Come join us for a very engaging and skill enhancing course.

Managerial Leadership

MORS-468-0

This course is designed to help students understand the character and challenges of leadership as it exists and can exist in various organizational settings. It is intended to provide insights into the demands of leadership and explore how leadership skills can be developed and applied most effectively. Interaction with guest lecturers provides an opportunity to observe and dissect various approaches to leadership. The objective of the course is to help students prepare for, and make them more sensitive to, continuing opportunities for improving their own managerial and leadership capabilities.

Negotiations

MORS-470-0

This course is designed to improve students’ skills in all phases of negotiation: understanding prescriptive and descriptive negotiation theory as it applies to dyadic and multiparty negotiations, to buyer-seller transactions and the resolution of disputes, to the development of negotiation strategy and to the management of integrative and distributive aspects of the negotiation process. The course is based on a series of simulated negotiations in a variety of contexts including one-on-one, multi-party, cross-cultural, third-party and team negotiations. There is an attendance policy. Prerequisite: MORS-430.

Individual & Competitive Decision Making

MORS-471-0

The purpose of this course is to understand and improve how we make decisions. It is designed to complement the technical skills taught in other courses at Kellogg. A basic premise of the course is that a manager needs analytical skills to discover optimal solutions to problems. However, the intuition that lies at the core of these decisions may be faulty. This course allows participants the opportunity to develop better decision-making skills experientially. The course is designed to be relevant to a broad spectrum of decisions that are faced by the manager and professional.

Bargaining

MORS-476-0

This course combines the approaches of game theory, organization behavior and negotiations to improve students’ strategy formation and implementation in a variety of bargaining games. Using hands-on exercises, students are taught to construct and enact immediate strategies, learn how well they have bargained and analyze their actions in depth. The course provides experiences in competitive and cooperative negotiations and culminates in an extended, complex bargaining simulation.

Independent Study

MORS-499-0

Students who have established superior records and who wish to study more in depth than what is provided in regular courses may register for independent study with a selected instructor. Permission of the instructor and the department is required.

Independent Study

MORS-499-B

Students who have established superior records and who wish to study more in depth than what is provided in regular courses may register for independent study with a selected instructor. Permission of the instructor and the department is required.

Entering and Operating in Emerging Economies

MORS-913-0

Changes in the world political environment, regionalization and globalization of manufacturing and technology have accelerated the emergence of new economies and increased their importance as markets, manufacturing bases and distribution centers. Early and well-targeted entry into properly selected economies can offer unique opportunities to pre-empt competition. But selecting target countries, determining when and how to enter, and managing the infrastructure and systematic gaps and volatility and dynamic conditions typical of emerging economies, can be difficult and must fit company strengths and limitations. This course is designed to increase understanding of such markets. It will make use of a computer-based interactive simulation of related issues and challenges and an evolving analytic and planning methodology. The course will include senior managers and experts as guest lecturers and emphasize discussion and exercises.

Socially Responsible Business Practices

MORS-916-0

This course examines socially responsible business practices from the point of view of the competitive advantage they provide. Topics are selected in consultations with students each year and might involve the following: diversity, employee concerns, international challenges, socially responsible investing and socially responsible entrepreneurship.

Socially Responsible Business Practices

MORS-916-B

This five-week course examines socially responsible business practices from the point of view of the competitive advantage they provide. Topics are selected in consultations with students each year and might involve the following: diversity, employee concerns, international challenges, socially responsible investing and socially responsible entrepreneurship.

Risky Decisions

MORS-917-A

This five-week course on risk and its ramifications deals with avoiding risks as well as taking them wisely. It takes two perspectives. The first surrounds the notion that we and our organizations are always subject to calamities, regardless of what we do, and that the best way we can safeguard our firms and ourselves is to prepare for the worst. The second perspective is based on the fact that managers, executives and organizations are constantly making decisions that inherently include risk. The course focuses more on this perspective than on the first, and investigates how managers typically confront risk, how they deal with difficult decisions and how they can prepare themselves most effectively to make the best decisions in risky environments.

Leading and Organizing an Entrepreneurial E-Business

MORS-919-0

This course focuses on the strategic and managerial issues associated with starting a new e-business. It provides students with conceptual frameworks and analytical tools for managerial and strategic decision making in a high-growth and turbulent environment, and gives them tools and guidelines for identifying opportunities. These include products or services that meet an underlying market need not currently served by competitors; obtaining resources (technological, financial, environmental and human resources); developing and executing a strategy (e-business models); and assembling, organizing and leading an e-business that can be expanded and scaled up very rapidly. We also consider some of the challenges and obstacles faced by incumbent brick and mortar firms in responding to challenges from e-businesses. We use real companies as examples and bring in speakers from local startups and the venture capital community.

Market Driven Strategies for Dynamic Markets

MORS-923-0

Entrepreneurial opportunities often arise when industries are created or transformed by emerging new technologies. The course addresses the challenges of building high technology entrepreneurial firms as independent entities and within incumbent organizations. This course is being offered in collaboration with McKinsey and Company and uses lectures and cases based on real-life examples to discuss the salient issues involved in building businesses. A senior leader from McKinsey discusses a case that illustrates the concept being discussed. Student groups are assigned to real-life, early-stage companies and work with a “coach” from McKinsey in advising the company on issues related to business building. This course covers strategies for acquiring resources for establishing the business as well as strategies for creating a viable organization, introducing new products into the market and growing the business. The course also examines a venture subsequent to the acquisition of the initial capital.

Consulting: Frameworks and Practice

MORS-924-0

This class provides a real taste of consulting through a combination of readings, lectures, guest appearances and a quarter-long consulting case. Student project teams dissect the problem, determine the solution set and develop a formal presentation to communicate and sell their recommendations to the company’s senior leadership team. The course teaches a variety of consulting skills, with examples from the professor’s own consulting experience. Guest lecturers from leading consulting firms augment these discussions. The course is intended for students seeking to build their consulting and problem-solving skills, whether they use these in a consulting firm or, internally, within an organization.

Business Design for Environmental Sustainability

MORS-925-0

Will you lead the next industrial revolution? To lead and profit from the revolutionary alignment of business practice with environmental sustainability requires abilities to rethink and redesign the core functions of business organizations. Through a mixture of case studies, class discussion, team-based projects and class visitors, this course helps students build strength in designing organizations for environmental sustainability. Students will learn how the green redesign of core organizational processes is generating competitive advantage for existing companies throughout the world; develop skills in identifying and prioritizing the many profitable opportunities to green business practices in light of shareholder value and ecological integrity; and consider how relations between organizational components can foster or undermine organizational commitments to sustainability, as well as how one firm’s leadership can spark the revolution in core organizational practices needed to sustain the lasting health of natural, social and economic systems. The course provides students an opportunity to craft a professional response to the world’s monumental environmental challenges.

Strategies, Structures and Tools for Sustaining Innovation

MORS-926-0

In this course, “sustainable” innovation includes but goes beyond “green” issues and compliance with environmental and corporate social responsibility edicts to consider a wide range of potential threats to the success of an innovation. Leading firms recognize that traditional innovation approaches are insufficient to meet the complexity of emerging strategic and organizational challenges in today’s quick-moving and interconnected global market. New perspectives and alliances, as well as the redefinition of core competencies, are required. But along with the pressures, the market also offers new opportunities for innovation. Competitive potential comes from new and converging technologies, emerging international social and economic development contexts, changing outsourcing and competitive behavior in services and manufacturing fields, broadened domain definition and enhanced stakeholder identification and interaction. Students in this practice-oriented course are introduced to key decision tools and apply them to case analyses and team-based projects. The class also assesses interrelated and underlying economic, developmental, historical, social and cultural-anthropological factors, with examples drawn from around the globe.

Managing Innovation Challenges and Contexts

MORS-927-0

This cross-disciplinary course will explore increasingly common dynamic and complex operating conditions that affect an organization’s ability to innovate. To be viable, solutions must consider organizational, cultural, political/policy, development and technology issues. The course will equip students with a set of mapping tools evolved with industry that can support innovation management in a wide range of day-to-day activities and projects. The tools are best understood through practice and the course will work through a series of unfolding cases and exercises. Innovations in health care and renewable energy in a variety of domestic and international settings will be addressed as examples. After introductory sessions, focus will be on projects with groups interacting individually with the instructor. Projects may build on work for other courses and programs as well as initiatives for employers. During the quarter, students will be invited to participate in industry-academic workshops and discussion forums.

Leaders & Leadership

MORS-933-0

This course, offered in a seminar format, explores leaders and leadership situations as described in a variety of books, most of which are biographies. Lessons and insights are extracted that can then be applied to the student’s own approach to and understanding of leadership. The critical dimensions of leadership are emphasized, and a framework for thinking about the subject provides a focus for interactive discussions.

Managing in Professional Service Firms

MORS-934-0

In this course, students discover what it takes to be an effective and successful professional, leading up to crafting a personal plan to kick-start his or her career. The class, which explores many of the topics executives face in a broad spectrum of leading institutions, is designed primarily for students who plan to join professional service firms, although it provides valuable insights for anyone who will engage with service firms in their careers. It is built around two modules: the first deals with common issues across professional service firms such as knowledge management, people management and the concept of “trusted adviser.” The second module explores differences in the context of these institutions, specifically consulting, private equity, asset management and talent management. The format is designed to identify implications for the individual student, building on case discussions and personal reflections of leaders (CEOs or senior executives) of prominent institutions who will be present for parts of each class.

Leadership Coaching Course: A Small Group Experience in Self-Reflection & Peer Coaching

MORS-935-C

This course is a unique opportunity for students who are highly motivated and committed to their personal development and growth as a leader. You will partner with a Kellogg Leadership Coach who will lead a small group of eight students through a series of assignments that will help you increase self-awareness and gain clarity about your unique leadership skills, values, needs, strengths and limitations. Groups are divided by 1st year and 2nd year/1Y. Classes will last for two hours. Each class will consist of group discussions and peer coaching exercises around self-reflective assignments that you must prepare prior to class. In addition, you will have the option of meeting one-on-one with your Kellogg Leadership Coach for a 45-minute coaching session twice during the quarter. This is an experiential learning course centered on your personal development that will not be assigned a letter grade. Grading will be on a “Pass/No Credit” basis. Successful completion of this course will be represented as a “Pass” with 0.5 credits on your transcript and a Leadership Coaching Certificate of Completion. Course requirements include: 100% attendance (including the first day of class); completion of the 1st assignment due on the first day of class and all other subsequent assignments; honoring the confidential information of others in the group; and active participation in all group coaching sessions. The “Pass” will not count towards credit for graduation or the MORS major.