5 credits
Organizations are increasingly a reflection of the confluence of dynamic influences and pressures to compete in an uncertain environment. Leaders need to stimulate creative and innovative approaches to products, services, and operations. Yet, organizations also need to have predictable control systems to enable the efficient utilization of resources. Students in this course cover some basic to intermediate concepts, models, and theories from general systems theory, systems thinking, network theory, complex adaptive systems theory, complexity leadership theory, and evolutionary systems theory with applications to social organizations. Students use a provided template to model, describe, and apply these concepts to an organization of their choice such as society-at-large or a subset of society; a community, city, county, state, or country; or a corporation, a nonprofit, government agency, an educational institution, or a military organization as this course starts from abstract systems and moves to concrete instances. Throughout this course, students will improve their understanding of systems, organizations, and leadership or management decision-making capabilities.