COHR 311 - Organizational Analysis

COHR 311 is devoted to learning about organizations, their functions, form and consequences in ways that are meaningful to you as a present and future organizational participant. It is intended as a course that will help you better interpret and understand what goes on around you in an organization. It will assist you to clarify how you might gain more control over your organizational life. It is also meant as an introduction to the ruts, pitfalls and traps in organizations as a means for you to think about ways to genuinely improve the productive contributions that can be made in organizations. It is a course that focuses on both the darker, shadowy and the positive sides of organizational life.

Strong emphasis in this course is on self discovery, on each of you learning to invent maps and images for yourself that can guide you toward organizational life. Organizations are continually evolving; we shape and give meaning to them through what we bring to organizational events and how we and others interpret what happens in these events.

A key assumption in this course is that it is not easy to understand the complexity and subtlety of organizations simply by reading and talking. What people ~ and what we encounter in our organizational worlds are often different from what we assume to be the case. Your understanding will come most effectively from experiencing organizational events, reflecting on them on your own and with others, and then synthesizing your insights with what you read in the literature about organizations and organizational behavior.

Note: COHR 311 will not be offered in 2023W.

Prerequisite: COMM 203.