COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA 258A-11

COURSE TITLE: International Business: Organizational Innovation in Global Companies

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 Units

INSTRUCTOR: Homa Bahrami

E-MAIL ADDRESS: bahrami@haas.berkeley.edu or homa@pdgy.com

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION: bSpace

PODCAST: Intl Business: Org. Innovation in Global Comp.

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Saturdays, 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

PREREQUISITE(S): EWMBA Core Curriculum

CLASS FORMAT: Guest speakers, case discussions, application workshops, summary lectures

REQUIRED READINGS:

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Class participation & group project

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES: Downloadable Podcast (mp3 format)
This course explores dynamic recipes for organizing global companies. In contrast to traditional approaches that assume “stability”, our focus is on agility, flexibility, and the capacity to adapt to new global realities. Today business entities navigate through a myriad of economic, technological, geo-political, regulatory, social and cultural changes. To compete and succeed, they have to re-design their organizational architectures for the emerging global ecosystem. Organizational design has taken center-stage in recent years because it impacts the EXECUTION capability of an enterprise. As technology and globalization have transformed the traditional foundations of business entities, we are searching for novel approaches that can facilitate innovation, agility and flexibility. Specifically, we will focus on the new rules of “super-flexibility” and explore the topic from three complementary perspectives:

  1. The enterprise perspective: focusing on organizing for flexibility, innovation and speed, and the changing role of corporate HQ
  2. The team/project perspective: focusing on collaborating in geo-distributed teams, and interacting with multi-cultural stakeholders
  3. The individual perspective: focusing on profiles of ‘super-flexible” knowledge workers, and different approaches for career success and personal growth in global settings

The course will be of special interest to students who currently work, or intend to work, in dynamic knowledge industries including high tech, life sciences & biotech, telecommunications, consulting, and professional services. Class sessions are designed to be “learning labs”. Guest speakers, application workshops, and case discussions are used to tap into your experience, to link theory and practice, and to explore organizational recipes for dynamic execution. The goal is to give you practical frameworks, diagnostic tools, and effective recipes for succeeding in the dynamic world of international business.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:
Dr. Homa Bahrami is a Senior Lecturer at the Haas School of Business, and on the Board of the new Haas Center for Teaching Excellence. Her research, teaching, and advisory work focus on organizational design and team effectiveness in global, knowledge-based companies. She is the co-author of a leading textbook in organizational behavior titled “Managerial Psychology: Managing Behavior in Organizations” published by the University of Chicago Press and translated into many languages. This course is based on her most recent book, “Super-Flexibility for Knowledge Enterprises”, (co-authored with Stuart Evans, from Carnegie Mellon and Cambridge University). The book presents conceptual frameworks and practical examples for operating in today’s dynamic world. Homa is active in executive education and executive development in the US, Europe and Asia. She serves on several boards in Silicon Valley and Europe and advises executive teams of global companies on organizational design and team effectiveness.