Management Science for a New Era

HPM 539 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

The past decade has brought dynamism, complexity, and growth in health organizations, from integrated care delivery systems to multi-service nonprofits. As a result, healthcare work settings are increasingly fast paced, interdependent and uncertain – and COVID-19 has greatly intensified these trends. These conditions make management and organizational behavior ever more critical to performance. How can leaders help their organizations and teams to thrive in such dynamic settings? How can they simultaneously organize for tight execution and innovation, build resilience in the face of crisis, achieve influence amid limited authority, and treat people respectfully without burning out? These are questions of organizational behavior and theory.
 
The primary objective of this course is to help students critically evaluate organizational and team structures, processes, and climates to initiate and sustain performance. We will apply multiple facets and analytic frameworks from organizational behavior to central challenges facing health organization leaders today. This is thus a management course, not an economics or policy course. It focuses on skills and practical frameworks that can help people thrive as they rise from individual stars to managers of people and systems.
 
This class is taught primarily through interactive case studies from real organizations, which expose students to a variety of managerial concepts and help them develop general management acumen. It is relevant for anyone who intends to manage projects and lead teams and organizations - whether in health care delivery, consulting, nonprofits, government, or elsewhere. To thrive in this fast-paced era, understanding, designing, and navigating the human systems of organizations is vital. This course will help students to do so.