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To this point, I've presented a workingdefinition of organizations and explainedjust how common they are.Now, I want to sell you on the course.Learning about organizations, reflectingon how they operate, and considering avariety of means by which they can bemanaged is an important skill mosteveryone in today's society shoulddevelop.We live in an organizational society andmany of the problems we confront areorganizational in nature.We need to better understand and manageorganizations if we are to evolve as asociety.This course attempts to provide you withsuch training.It's an introductory course onorganizations that helps you grapple withthe complexity of institutional life.The course focuses on actual cases ofnon-profits, educational institutions,

government agencies, private firms and thepolicies aimed at changing them.The course material, material is designed,for advanced undergraduates, Masterstudents, and PhDs interested inorganizations.So, so, let's cut the chase.What's the utility of this course tomanagers, policymakers, and analysts?Why should you care?Again, organizations are everywhere.You can't change society or understandmuch of it, without knowing something

about organizations and how they work.The social reality of organizational lifeis pretty messy and complex, and we need aconceptual framework, or a set of them, tohelp us make sense of it.For example, what should you pay attentionto?What matters, what does not when you lookat an organization and the reforms or theproblems it confronts?Where do you begin if you want to studyand change them?This course offers you conceptual

frameworks and tools by which to do this.Through this course, you'll betterunderstand the problems that organizationslike schools, universities, nonprofits andprivate firms confront.There are so many problems that arise inan organization that it's hard to rattlethem all off, but here, we can name a few.First, organizations confront problems ofdefining objectives, like goals.

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It's not always clear what their missionis, or if they have conflicting ones.Organizations struggle to get people toshow up and to perform services liketasks.Students in required classes are difficultto show up.Third, organizations worry about thecoordination of lots of people trying toaccomplish these tasks.And even how to coordinate different taskswith one another.Here, the problem is how to have upstreamand downstream kinds of activitiescoordinated or even how to accomplish eachtask on their own.There's always a concern of drawingnecessary resources from an environment.This could be a fifth kind of concern.Organizational inputs, like money orrevenue, materials, knowledge, are highlyimportant for the functioning of anorganization.Then, organizations also have to worry

about their outputs, dispensing ideas,products, and funds the environment, andmaking sure that the environment reacts tothem.There's also the concern with selecting,training, and replacing members asparticipants move through theseorganizations.Participants and organizations grow old.They graduate, they die.People turn over, they find other jobs.Replacing them is a key function orconcern of every organization.

Organizations even worry about therelations they have with other firms, liketies to neighbors, and, and fit with anenvironment.For example, Walmart can't just plop downin any particular neighborhood.They have to consider the environment andtheir fit.This course exposes you to a variety ofactual cases of organizations and theoriesthat help make sense of what you'veobserved.Through this course, you'll learn there's

nothing more practical than a good theory.Many of you have, have organizationalexperiences of your own.And they'll be of great value in thiscourse.Think of them as experiences from a child,you've developed different accounts orinterpretations.In most cases, your accounts focus oncertain features of the organizational

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seeing, ways of understanding, and ways ofmanaging the complex reality oforganizations.I'll leave it up to you, on the actualorganization cases that interest you, todiscern which tool or combination of thembest applies.