98668 - Management Skills Lab

Learning outcomes

The aim of the course is to provide students with the theoretical and practical framework related to the profile Staff, Competencies, Motivations and performance required to top managers and middle managers. At the end of the course students are able to: (a) understand the key issues related to the evaluation of managers and curricular components; (b) analyze the management's aspects linked to the business dimension, to the phase of life cycle and to the strategic focus in connection with the elaboration and management of business plans; (c) evaluate and use the potentialities of the networking approach in project and business networks development. The course is part of the integrated course in “Organization and management” together with the course “Organization” that provide students with the theoretical basic framework about organization, that are necessary to take the lab.

Course contents

This course focuses on managing and designing flexible organizations. In particular, this course spans the following topics:

• Basics of systems theory and stability theory. Negative and positive feed-backs, vicious and virtuous circles.
• The classical prescriptions of organizational design. Interdependencies and coordination modes. Usage of different coordination modes at different hierarchical levels.
• Types of standardization. Standardization of boundary conditions as a means to obtain greater organizational flexibility. Applications in the software industry.
• Emergence and management of organizational routines. Group size limits.
• Lean manufacturing as a means to highlight problems. Learning and coaching vs. management by stress.
• Agile network organizations originating. From the organization of agile programming to sociocratic applications and beyond.
• Corporate  ideology as a glue for flexible organizations. Case-study on Apple vs.  Microsoft.

Readings/Bibliography

All teaching materials are available on VirtuaLE.

Teaching methods

This is laboratory course. This implies that exercises, games and computer experiments will be carried out in class. In particular, the  NetLogo platform for building agent-based models will be expounded.

Assessment methods

The final grade is expressed as fractions of 30. Here is a correspondence with natural language:

• <18: insufficient
• 18-23: sufficient
• 24-27: good
• 28-30: very good
• 30 with honors: excellent
  

The exam takes 20 min. It's a written exam consisting of 10 multiple-choice questions. If many students enroll, the exam is split in two sessions for even and odd enrollment numbers, respectively. Cellular phones, headphones and other devices capable of connecting to the Internet are not allowed.

Each question can receive at most 3 marks. Three possible answers are proposed for each question. Students who pick up the right answer receive 3 marks. Students who pick up a wrong answer, several answers, or no answer at all, they obtain 0 marks. Students are allowed to change their initial choice provided that their final choice is absolutely clear.

Sometimes, knowledgeable, profound students receive low marks in multiple choice exams because they have interesting thoughts that are different from those of the professor. In order to alleviate this problem, students have a possibility to leave a comment where explain why they selected a certain answer. If this was the wrong answer, but it was chosen out of interesting reasons, I shall assign 1, or 2, or even 3 marks. Comments cannot decrease the evaluation of a correct answer. If comments make clear that the right answer was selected out of a wrong reason, that answer receives 3 marks nonetheless.

Three lessons will be devoted to class exercises. Attendance of at least one class exercise contribute 1 additional unit to the exam grade. If 30/30 has already been reached, honors are granted. Each student can only obtain one additional unit.

There are no partial exams. Only students who enrolled through AlmaEsami are admitted to the exam. The final mark cannot be changed by means of oral discussion.

Smartphones, earphones and smartwatches are not allowed. Students equipped with such devices will be invited to leave them at adequate distance.

Exams correction times depend on professor's duties, which are larger than this course. Timing cannot be foreseen. Please do not ask questions on correction time.

For regular students

The grade obtained on Management Skills Lab (3 ECTS) is averaged with the grade obtained on Organization (6 ECTS) with coefficients 1/3 and 2/3, respectively. The resulting comprehensive grade is approximated to the closest integer. This comprehensive grade cannot be recorded unless both component exams have been passed. The grade obtained on Management Skills remains available within the current academic year. If Organization is not passed, the grade obtained on Management Skills is discarded.

For Erasmus students

Erasmus students are not compelled to take both Management Skills and Organization. Even if they choose to take both courses, they are not compelled to average the grades that they obtain. In order to do so, please declare Management Skills and Organization as independent courses in your Learning Agreement.

Students are allowed to refuse the grade that they obtained. Please communicate this decision by e-mail within one week after publication of grades (holidays included). Late communications may be accepted upon discretion. Earlier deadlines may be occasionally stated in the section "Notice" of this web site. Students who successfully passed an exam and did not refuse their grading are not allowed to attend subsequent calls of the same exam.

Teaching tools

Front lessons with slides, class discussions, case-studies. Computational experiments on NetLogo.

Office hours

See the website of Guido Fioretti