Organisational Change and Leadership

After completing the course, the student shall be able to:

• describe dominant perspectives in research on organisational change.
• describe the key concepts, theories and models used to describe and analyse changes and work towards change in complex organisations.
• describe different change strategies.
• critically review and analyse concept driven change processes and structural organisational changes as well as reflect on the importance of leadership in initiating and managing organisational changes in complex organisations.
• assess the challenges that different change strategies entail for management and staff as well as evaluate different methods and models for implementing and evaluating changes in complex organisations.

The course deals with organisational changes from a broad and multidisciplinary perspective and the driving forces that may be expected to initiate new organisational changes and generate new organisational concepts. The course also looks at different types of organisations as venues for possible changes. In the course, students study the different consequences of changes, especially in relation to ethical aspects and sustainability aspects. During the course, several real cases of organisational change are analysed, and the course prepares participants for in depth analysis and problem-solving in similar cases. This is done by the students working on seminar assignments with focus on real cases. Prominent themes are structure, process, participation, influence, organisational learning, leadership and sustainability.

Students are examined through presentations of course literature and scientific articles as well as written assignments that are presented and discussed at seminars.

Lectures and seminars. The course is based on active participation in the seminars and on students conducting literature studies between seminars and lectures.

The Swedish grades U–VG.