In this course, students will learn and reflect about the management of complex organizations that are part of today’s world of work. Universities will serve as the prime example of complex organizations and students will learn to apply and transfer theories and concepts of leadership from the business world to higher education institutions. Universities are excellent examples given their complexity (e.g., volatile environment, many stakeholders, vulnerability to legal regulations, multiple goals, expert organization, unclear technology) to demonstrate the different challenges when it comes to developing an efficient and effective organization and strategy. More than a decade of work experience of the instructor as a Vice-Rector at WU Vienna University of Economics and Business will be added to the course experience.

Drawing on a variety of higher education and business literature, we will examine major areas: organization & governance, institutional environment & markets, leadership, strategy, and change. Class sessions will be complemented by guest lectures from international universities leaders and experts.

Students are asked to participate actively in this course. Student presentations, prepared questions based on a real-life case, a background paper, and discussions in groups as well as video analysis are the major learning formats. Personal experiences as students in different universities can serve as a starting point for individual and group reflections. Different national systems provide an additional comparative perspective.

In this respect, students will gain insights in the complex nature of university organization, e.g., stakeholders in decision-making, administrative and academic structures, influence of external constituencies, environmental demands. The discussion will focus on differences between the profit and the non-profit-sector. After completing the course, students should be able to understand and analyze complex organizations and to assess the suitability of different leadership approaches. This will enable them to apply their learning in different organizational settings of the profit and nonprofit world.

· Understanding key aspects of leadership in complex organizational settings

· Applying insights to university settings based on individual case

· Dealing with complex problems by applying theory to case institutions by working through recent literature

Full attendance in all sessions is mandatory.

The course consists of one introductory session, and five regular units. The introductory meeting will outline the major features of the course and the assignments

Unit 2-6 are dedicated to discussing certain topics in more detail. Each session will have the following format:

· General outline of the topic

· Student group presentations

· Group work, case discussion or guest lectures

In addition to presenting and discussing research and practice on leadership of complex organizations, the course aims to develop your skills in writing, critical reading and thinking. To these ends, assessment (i.e., grades) will be based upon completion of the following assignments:

1. Class Participation (50%)

A general requirement of the course is the completion of all assigned readings for each class session. For this, you are asked for active participation in class discussion. You should prepare comments and questions for each class. Students will also present in class in which they introduce the topic and one reading to the class and guide the discussion. The aim is to refine your skills in doing and presenting a critical analysis.

Hence, the assessment for this part includes:

o Preparing synthesis of readings applied to YOUR university (20%)

o Group Presentation of reading in class and leading discussion (30%)

2. Paper (40%)

Use YOUR university and pick the major challenge you would like to address. Use the literature of the course and additional sources. Length is limited to maximum 15 pages including all materials.

The paper is due on January 15 on CANVAS. Coaching for the paper can be arranged with the course instructor individually.

3. Reflection and assessment paper (10%)

A written self-assessment of your role as learner and contributor to the class, including the extent to which you engaged in completing the above assignments. Additionally, this statement should include an evaluation of the role of content, form and instructor in completing the tasks. The assessment (not more than 3 pages) is due together with the research paper on January 15 on CANVAS.

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For further questions, please contact Professor Sporn via email at sporn@wu.ac.at.

Readings

All course related readings are available on CANVAS.

For further questions, please contact Ricardo Kumin for assistance.

Please for formatting your paper use Bachelor/Master Thesis Guide on www.wu.ac.at/ihm

Use of AI

Your paper should be your original work and you should declare the use of AI. Misusing text generated by AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, Bard, or others, is not considered original work. It is considered academic misconduct under our policy, leading to serious disciplinary actions.  The automated plagiarism check of your paper will return a probability score for AI generated text.

While the core should be your own creation, you are allowed to use AI-based tools for grammar checks and writing revisions. However, you are not allowed to use AI-based software to generate new text for your paper, for example, by using prompts like "write a paragraph about my topic" or "make this section longer." If you choose to use AI-based tools, please ensure that you provide a detailed overview in the appendix, including your prompts and the responses from the text generation software that you used to generate your paper. To assist you with this, we provided a reporting text template below.

Text Template for Reporting the Use of AI Tools:

Acknowledgment of Artificial Intelligence Tools Used:

For purposes of writing revision and grammar checks, I used the following tools:

Gramarly (https://www.grammarly.com)

Chat-GPT v.3.5 (https://chat.openai.com/)

Bing (https://www.bing.com)

I used the following promts:

"Check for errors in my writing"

"Correct for grammar, spelling and comma mistakes."

I used the output to help revise my writing in the following segments of my thesis:

1.1. Introduction

2.3. Sampling

3.4.2. Results Study 1

4. Discussion